Ma Vhenan and Amatus
by Blablover5
Summary: A handful of one shots between Dorian and a Dalish Inquisitor as a certain flippant Tevinter mage realizes he fell harder for a lithe elf than he ever anticipated.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N** : The Inquisitor is the one from my My Love series (who I came to really like and wanted to explore) but you don't need to have read that series for this to make any sense. It's just a few moments during the Inquisition story line between the two of them._

* * *

If it weren't for the damp, the muck, the insects buzzing through his ear, the voracious ones chewing apart his shins, and the smell of death wafting off the still creek he could almost consider this outside living passable. This was assuming a sword was held to this throat, he was out of mana, and found himself drunk enough to be easily persuaded to assail the outdoors in the first place. Maker, the things he'd put up with for a pretty face.

"You've been hunched over that dirt for the past hour," Dorian complained before slapping at some insignificant yellow and red terror flitting to chew apart his exposed shoulder.

The Inquisitor didn't rise off his well toned haunches. While Dorian was grateful to watch the man's muscles prodding up through his leathers he'd have preferred to do it indoors, and without trousers getting in the way. Gaerwn didn't respond as he continued to run a finger over the same dirt patch he'd been stirring for what felt the entire afternoon. It was growing so lugubrious and dull, Dorian even spent a few minutes speaking with the soldiers in charge of hoisting up the camp. Their life's greatest endeavor seemed to amount to beans and the preferred burning state there in, IE not too charred as to be blackened but far enough along one achieved a caramelizing flavor. The fact he now not only knew that but had birthed his own opinion was going to cost the Inquisitor dearly later.

"Blackwall," Gaerwn called to the walking mat of bear fur who'd been trailing the woods with him for what felt like the past lifetime and on to the next. "What do you make of this?"

The partial Grey Warden and full time ambulating beard grumbled, causing the lice's home to wobble as he spoke, "Not certain. Tracks, but never seen the like before."

Finally, Gaerwn staggered to his legs, not even bothering to knock off the mud across the fancy leathers. "My thoughts as well. One set seems to head off towards the north, but the other..." His words trailed away, those hauntingly pale blue eyes shifting through the forest. Dorian rarely bothered memorizing a man's eye color unless he feared he'd need to be reciting it to a guardsman later, but Gaerwn's were recognizable from across a battlefield. With the natural elven width giving an even greater depth to the icy sheen, they were the eyes a man could drown in without regrets, assuming he had half a mind to.

Blackwall grumbled again, having no doubt used up the few words he knew, before nodding his head, "I'll check north."

A whisper of a smile lifted up the Inquisitor's lips and he patted Blackwall's arm once. "Thank you."

For a moment the man-bear's eyes shifted over to Dorian who had his arms crossed in a pout, before Blackwall shook his head and slipped into the woods. Dorian was fairly certain that the biggest reason Blackwall was at such ease in the woods was because he was suckled by wolves as a babe until being kicked out of the pack for being such a bore. While Dorian watched him stumble through the trees, Gaerwn returned to the dirt.

"By the void, what do you find so interesting mashed up in that pile of twigs and leaves?"

"I could explain it," the Inquisitor said patiently, before he glanced up at Dorian and a smile broke through his armor, "but I rather doubt you'd care, or listen."

"You have me, I'm afraid," Dorian admitted. He'd had a witty comeback, but it fell apart from that so rarely glimpsed beacon of light glinting off his Amatus' teeth.

Gaerwn ran a finger over the twigs, sifting one up, but over his shoulder he whispered, "I certainly hope so."

 _Oh, now that was cruel._ Slowly, Dorian ran a finger across the back of the man's neck. A sliver of his bronzed skin prodded between the gaps of his armor's neck and that untamed, chestnut hair. Gaerwn was clearly trying to focus, but at the contact of skin on skin, his lips parted and a sigh rustled the dead air of the forest. Encouraged, Dorian's fingers climbed up through the lush hair.

"This is important," Gaerwn whispered, even as his eyes slipped shut.

Bending downward, Dorian whispered in his ear, "So's this." Not his best, but Gaerwn turned, giving him the perfect opportunity to strike. Cupping that never whiskery cheek, Dorian guided him to a kiss he'd been aching for since they first set camp. Answering in kind, Gaerwn ignored his patch of dirt and dug his fingers into Dorian's arm, that taciturn tongue of his matching in step with Dorian's witty one. Maker, even coated in the depths of nature's slime, the man tasted like an intoxicating ardor - the kind that could drive Dorian mad at night, and the last he ever expected to find wrapped inside that remote, Dalish shell. His knee sunk to the ground, Dorian risking mud and muck for the man, while the Inquisitor ran those cautiously thin fingers down Dorian's buckles across his chest.

"I lost the tracks up the cliff's edge, and...ah, Buggers."

Dorian sprang away from the Inquisitor, tumbling back on his ass. Aware of Blackwall's eyes hunting across him, he scooted even further apart, the book on his back gouging troughs through the forest floor. For his part, Gaerwn smiled softly to himself before turning to face the Grey Warden. From stumbling into something so disquieting, a hint of a blush floated up between the skin parts that weren't hair on Blackwall.

"That's a shame," the Inquisitor said.

"I'll talk to the lookout. See what she saw," Blackwall grumbled, happy to be walking away from the awkward situation.

"An excellent idea," Gaerwn crowed. While Dorian felt panic clawing through his gut, and Blackwall looked about to melt into a pile of hairy goo, only the quiet, Dalish Inquisitor was unmoved. He returned to the tracks, not about to give up on whatever he'd been working on. "I shall return to camp soon if I cannot find anything."

"Okay, good," Blackwall turned fully around and marched towards the soldiers, his arms slapping against downed branches as he barreled through the woods. It was probably Dorian's imagination, but he swore he heard laughter echoing through the trees like a lion roaring before the kill.

A silence returned to the disturbed forest, but now the once verdant refuge felt despoiled and unclean. Sitting in his gut roared a both familiar and foreign sense of regret. He knew better than to attempt to satiate his refined attentions upon the man, not here without walls or doors. No, Skyhold was the only safe bet, and even then...

Unable to shake the doom clinging to his brain, Dorian glanced over at his partner in crime to find him fine. Even, he dare think it, happy. While marching through towns or cities, Gaerwn wore an eternal frown - slight enough to not seem an attack but its mere presence set people on edge. As if it were cast by an important man who appeared to never be impressed. But here, with the woods and birds and other foul creatures, an uptick of his lips hinted at a deep solace washing clean his soul. Dorian started at the realization that the last time he saw that smile was when they shared a bed.

Sensing the eyes on him, Gaerwn shifted from his find to look over, "Is something wrong?"

"Aside from the entire camp about to be chattering like brainless song birds about their mighty Inquisitor dusting a filthy Tevinter's mustache, no. Nothing at all."

Gaerwn shrugged before returning to his sticks. He ran a finger along his chin, gently following the delectable dent in it, before pointing down the slope. "Perhaps I've been looking at it wrong," he mused to himself. Without bothering to look over at Dorian, the fearsome Dalish hunter rose to steady feet and stepped down the path.

Dorian staggered to follow, aware of the sucking sounds his backend made as it left the ground. Maker, it was going to take him ages to scrub all the mud off. He could return to camp, try and shrug away the grins hidden behind hands and manufacture a few new bon mots to shove Blackwall back in his cage, but his heart wasn't in it. Flippancy was his second language, applicable in nearly all matters save this. Forgoing the status of his clothing and the idea he'd ever be clean again, Dorian trudged after Gaerwn. They followed a mountain river that had once raged through the rocky forest floor before drying to a trickle. Darkness skirted the tree tops, their branches forming a ceiling against the sun. Despite the fear of falling, Gaerwn moved as sure footed as a ram. Dorian would often wince in sympathy whenever the Inquisitor's bare foot met with a rock, but the Dalish man seemed immune to any such pains.

"They're going to talk," Dorian called out through the woods. Gaerwn paused in his search through some imaginary signs on the ground. He stood upon an outcropping of rock leaning over towards a rocky plunge with a single hand wrapped around a branch to keep him tethered from the fall. When those endless eyes fell on Dorian he felt as if he'd been socked in the stomach; the breeze ruffling Gaerwn's hair as he posed like a rakish rogue stepping clean out of every one of Dorian's dreams.

Shrugging, the Inquisitor leapt off the rock and landed beside Dorian. "Perhaps," he said in his cryptic way. He stood close enough that visions of grabbing onto that wiry body and tugging him tight flitted through Dorian's mind but he didn't act on them. Maker only knew who else was walking through the woods at the moment.

"Why doesn't this bother you?" Dorian struggled to break through that icy exterior. He knew it wasn't permeant, having melted it more than a few times, but sometimes the man's impermeable mindset infuriated him.

"Why does it you?" Gaerwn stopped searching through the ground and a hand gripped onto Dorian's, the fingers threading around his while the ice steel eyes tried to dig into him.

Dorian watched their conjoined hands, his curled around Gaerwn's, another man's who seemed to care not a whit about the implications. It was madness. "Because talk is dangerous. I'd have thought one of your many spies would have drilled that fact into your head by now."

He anticipated a growl, but Gaerwn turned a sharp eye upon him, "I don't see how it's dangerous. This isn't about the Inquisition."

"Of course it is. You're the Inquisitor, ergo, you're the Inquisition and people will love to titter behind their masks about who...dances into the Herald of Andraste's life."

Gaerwn took the news with another half hearted shrug. The man was exasperating in every sense of the word. He would spend hours sitting at his desk weighing the fall of a sparrow in the field before coming to a decision, but when it came to this, all he could manage was a gentle fall of his shoulders. Either he was ignorant of the world having been raised in the savage southern forests with the rest of the elves, or he found some delightful torture in not caring who cared about him.

That thought caused Dorian to rear back and shake his head. No, that wasn't right. It didn't matter to him if the Inquisitor cared or didn't care about those that bore importance to the Inquisition itself, or people there of, and... Maker, he wished he thought to refill his flask before leaving the last signs of civilization a week ago. The only way to silence that chattering part of his heart was with whiskey; the cheaper the better.

Gaerwn watched him for a moment, his fingers reaching over to curl up around Dorian's waist. He should stop him, he was bloody trying to, but the damn Inquisitor wouldn't listen, and deep in his gut Dorian ached to wrap around that lithe, elven body. As if reading his mind, Gaerwn skirted a finger across Dorian's mustache, the elf endlessly fascinated with it. He spoke no words as he curled the end up and rose up on his shoeless toes to reach. His lips rested a breath away, about to seal the deal, when branches cracked through the underbrush.

"Not again!" Dorian cried, expecting Blackwall to stumble by with a hand over his eyes telling them dinner was ready. But Gaerwn spun around, his caressing hands reaching for the daggers on his back. A flash of white broke through the forest, hooves pounding down the bracken as it beat feet towards them. Gaerwn threw himself ahead of Dorian, the daggers at the ready, but he needn't bother. The winds shifted, pulling the musky scent of human and elf further into the forest. It must have reached the beast trampling for them as it skidded on its feet and spun about, white legs flailing like lightning as it turned back to its hideout.

Standing stock still, Gaerwn waited until the beast's trampling died down before he sheathed his dagger. Even then, he remained standing between Dorian and the creature. While he rarely went after the wiry types, he found it rather enticing how quick the man was to leap into danger to protect anyone around him. It was probably why all those fabled princesses kept locking themselves up in dragon towers.

"What was that?" Dorian asked. It happened so quickly, he barely had time to puncture the veil.

He expected the Inquisitor to turn away or give another of his gentle shrugs, but a joy burned in those haunting eyes. Grabbing onto Dorian's hand, the man grinned, "What I'm chasing. Come along!" Without any easy recourse, Dorian trailed after him. It was easy to follow the creature's path of broken branches as it punctured its own panicking trail through the forest.

At one point in their chase Gaerwn stopped up, his eyes turning away from where the beast ran. Even Dorian could see the obvious trail leading further to the south, but his Amatus gestured to the east. Releasing his hold on Dorian, Gaerwn pawed his shoeless foot through the ground and dropped to his hands and knees.

"What are you doing? I thought we were pursuing red templars," Dorian complained even as he followed suit. It wasn't as if he had any other recourse, having at best a vague idea in what direction the campsite was and not wanting to be eaten alive by either insect nor bear. Southern bears in particular seemed to be great fans of sweet, tevinter meat.

"We were, I'm not," Gaerwn didn't explain. Crawling along the underbrush all Dorian could get a picture of was that tight ass he suffered so much for. The man was lucky it was so well sculpted, with the perfect set of dimples in the back, that it was worth it...barely. Reaching the end of whatever he was looking for, Gaerwn staggered up to a knee. He turned back and offered a hand to Dorian, who at this stage was regretting ever leaving Tevinter. When he jammed his palm onto a pinecone he regretted his father being born.

Trying to not sneer, Dorian took Gaerwn's hand and deposited the pinecone into it. The elf stared at the addition curiously, but didn't ask about it. He tossed it to the side and returned his hand, something obviously beyond the ferns that he felt Dorian simply had to see. Slithering through the brush the elf made easier work of, the human's wider ass struggled to rise to a knee. "What is so...?" Dorian began when Gaerwn cupped a hand over his mouth. Glaring over it, Dorian stopped talking and he slowly followed the man's point.

Below them rested a glistening pool. Fed by a stream dribbling through the rocks of the cliffs, ferns concealed the ground, wafting with the breeze. But that wasn't what drew the Inquisitor's attention. Clustered around the pool with their heads stuck into the cool water, stamped four or five halla. By the dark forest light, their coats glowed an even more illuminating white than anything they'd seen on the Exalted Plains.

"It's halla. We've seen them before," Dorian mouthed at Gaerwn.

He sighed and whispered back, "Look closer."

Scrunching nearer to the edge even while Gaerwn clung to his arm as if he feared Dorian would fall, he peered down at the underbrush. A light whinnying broke above the gentle stream's gurgle and a small creature that was all legs teetered out below a larger halla. There were no horns yet, save a set of stubs upon the head, and its nose and ears looked far too large for its body.

Gaerwn smiled wide as it stuck its face into the stream and seemed to be blowing bubbles instead of drinking. "A foal. The halla protect them from outsiders until they're much older. It's rare for anyone not of the people to get a glance." The awe in his voice drew Dorian's attention away from the baby halla to the Inquisitor. He was smiling, not just smiling, the man who wore a cloak of aloof duty even while playing a game of cards looked about to break into peals of laughter.

"I haven't seen a foal since..." Gaerwn's head hung down and he licked his lips. The mask slipped on instantly, cutting off the burst of emotion. Dorian reached over and picked up his hand, curling it tight in his grip. He didn't get what was so special about the white deer, but he could tell in an instant what they meant to Gaerwn. Steel blue eyes slipped over to the side canvasing Dorian's body before landing upon their hands locked tight together.

"I don't worry about the gossip because I don't regret who I am."

"Oh?" Dorian was thrown off. He'd expected a long Dalish history of the halla, perhaps with charts and names of long dead gods.

"In the clan, everyone knew everyone's business. When you grow up with only thirty seven other people that's the way of life. Gossip was talk and not something feared. Secrets were impossible," Gaerwn explained. His fingers flipped over Dorian's hand and he began to trace something along the palm. The gentle caress fired up nerves all across his body, almost lulling Dorian's brain into a warm catatonic state.

"No one caused me to question it, to fear it. That was what I grew up with, knowing who I am, who I...prefer, with the same certainty as I do my name." He stopped his stroking and those striking eyes honed in on Dorian. "I am sorry that you were not afforded the same luxury."

A laugh echoed in Dorian's throat at the ridiculous idea that the filthy, wandering Dalish lapped up in some luxury unavailable to the son of a Tevinter Magister. "Do not be...that's absurd, I..."

"Dorian," he inched closer, the callus along his palm skirting in a hypnotizing way across Dorian's cheek, "you don't have to win every argument."

"Of course I do," Dorian laughed, trying to shatter the heavy air. "I'm of house Pavus, we always..."

Gaerwn's pale eyes slipped closed and he cut off Dorian's response with a kiss as soft as the mountain spring and pure as the halla's pristine hair. He'd tried to stop what this was, assuming he worked out his curiosity about the Inquisitor and could easily walk away from their physical encounter satiated. But that man, that deluded, delicious man refused to let him go. Every time Dorian pushed him or mocked around a serious turn - and Maker did he take them often - he anticipated Gaerwn to step back, assess that his time was better spent without an evil Tevinter mage crowding out his bed. If anything, the harder Dorian tried to shove him away, the sweeter Gaerwn held him. He convinced himself it was just about the sex because the alternative was a terrifying and exhilarating fear he may never climb out of.

Breaking off from Dorian's hungry lips, Gaerwn's tender fingers trailed down his stomach and he sighed, "I am glad you are here."

"Well," Dorian coughed from a rare bouquet of emotion brimming in those crisp eyes, "it's not every day one gets to see a little white deer drinking."

Gaerwn grinned, his gaunt cheeks blooming into joy, "Yes, that as well."

Struggling down the implications of his words, Dorian tried to revive his flippancy but somehow it lay torn in shreds at his feet. He felt naked by his lover's careful words, which seemed a waste being physically fully clothed and without anyone else to overhear them. Gaerwn stared down at the halla still unaware of the men watching them. The baby scampered between its small herd, getting a feel for those wobbly legs.

Wrapping his arms around Gaerwn's stomach, Dorian slowly tugged the elf down until they both sat upon the grassy ground. That thick tuffet of hair Dorian adored stroking landed against his chest and those icy eyes rolled shut. He sat upon a rocky precipice clinging tight to another man resting in his lap while thedas continued on without cracking in half and sinking into the ocean. It seemed to be a miracle in and of itself.

"Ma vhenan," Gaerwn mumbled, that delectable scar on his lip turned up to match his smile. _Was this peace?_ Dorian knew that when they returned to the camp it was back to occasional glances over the campfire and sleeping in separate tents. Back to keeping each other at an arm's length unless secured behind locked doors because he feared what consequences would land not upon his head but what they'd do to the man he...cared for. Yet here, with only the whispers of the trees and the nonchalant eyes of halla caring not a whit about the lives of two men, he felt calmer than he could remember in an age.

"Maker help me," Dorian mumbled, "but I find myself rather enjoying this nature life."

Gaerwn, the introspective, lissome man who became the only hope of thedas, the first man to ever grab Dorian's hand and refuse to let go, laughed softly under his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

"Harrit?" Dorian threw out while running his fingers across a cavalcade of cobwebs. No, not a cavalcade, a fortress for the eight legged creatures. Truly, they were the Grand Grounds of Minrathous of spiders, complete with servant quarters and dungeons overstuffed with rotting fly carcasses. The last time someone dusted down here elves were running things.

"Hm...?" the Inquisitor sat in the only chair, a foot crossed upon his lap so that he almost looked prim and proper. The decanter with a dribble of liquid remaining and the fact he'd pried open the first few buttons on those ridiculous leather pajamas told a different story.

"Harrit, you must have an opinion on him," Dorian said before his wandering attentions faded away. "Why is there a skull on the bookcase? Skulls go on mantles, as decorative posts for thrones of a particular mindset, or - in a pinch - serve as paperweights."

Gaerwn waved off the skull talk, his hand reaching for the barely passable liquor they'd split, refilled, and split again. His hand trembled, causing the crimson liquid to slosh over the side. Specks of red dribbles coated an ancient book someone left wide open upon the altar. For a moment, the Inquisitor frowned at his fumble before sighing, "If anyone asks, I shall claim it's blood."

Dorian chuckled at that while swiping a finger along his mustache. It always wilted when he drank too much. In truth, it was a wonder he ever managed to keep it upright. "You're avoiding the question..."

"He's an upstanding blacksmith," Gaerwn said.

"As diplomatic as our dear ambassador herself," Dorian sputtered, ending in a bow the Inquisitor couldn't see from behind. "But..." Dorian hooked a finger around the elf's shoulders, digging into the for once relaxed muscle, "that isn't the game."

"One I didn't wish to begin. Fine," he flounced, that thick bottom lip of his popping out. Gaerwn screwed his eyes shut tight and he sighed, "I don't care much for that type, but he seems well in shape for his lifestyle and a tad gruff. If that's your preference."

"Says the most taciturn man I've ever met short of a living statue," Dorian snickered. With both hands hooked onto the back of the chair, he leaned his face around to pluck a kiss from the grumbling Inquisitor. The man tasted of the piss brandy they'd suffered for the afternoon but Dorian didn't mind. He was far too enraptured in the disconcerted tremble to that tempting lip. His Amatus was rather perturbed today and he suspected it was his doing. At least he knew a few ways to draw the man out of his dour moods. Reaching a hand off the chair, Dorian caressed down Gaerwn's limber chest, paused at those thin, elven hips and wafted his fingers across the thigh.

At that, Gaerwn's lips popped away and sighed, "Not now, Dorian."

"Fair enough," he rose up and returned to pacing. Let the man stew in his personal cauldron of angst and ennui. He'd been on about it ever since the Winter Palace. No, something after tipped his dour frown into an endless glower. At Halamshiral he'd been more than ecstatic to give into Dorian's temptations, but as of late it was always a curt word and hand to wave the mage's delightful machinations away. He should probably feel slighted but Gaerwn kept returning to him at night so it wasn't all bad.

"Let's see..." Dorian pawed through ancient texts on that elven general of Andraste. What was his name? Chartreuse? "Fairbanks. He cuts a rather swarthy impression as the noble man obscuring his true heritage, striving to rescue the bedraggled poor while frolicking out in the woodland squalor. That should go right up your alley."

A sharp hiss rolled out of Gaerwn's nose and he took a moment before speaking. "Why is this how you wish to spend your time? To spend our time?"

"You've never sat around perusing the various options on the menu?"

"No," he twisted around in the chair, the weak candlelight giving his eyes a demonic red glare. "I don't see the point, nor why it would matter."

"We all have eyes, and on occasion browsing is a delightful way to ignore the doom squatting above our brows," Dorian laughed while reaching for the glass. In trying to drink it, he accidentally doused his mustache in even more of the scarlet liquor.

Gaerwn glowered at the dusty bookshelf, his eyes seeming to stare through Skyhold itself. "What of you?"

"Me?" Dorian sputtered through the drink, having to dab it off with his sleeve.

"Yes, what is your opinion on Fairbanks, or any of the others you've been putting me to?"

"Bold sartorial choices no doubt, though I can't help but feel he needs a small green cap with a vibrant feather in it to complete the ensemble. He's Orlesian with that dreadful accent, but you can't choose where you're from, so all in all, not the worst I could do." Dorian returned from his mind's eye to watch a cloud drift over Gaerwn's brow. "There? It's not that difficult to voice ones opinion if willing to try and not as stubborn as a druffalo stuck in the mud. I know you're always holding your tongue for fear someone will trip over it."

He anticipated an argument, had been expecting one for days now, but the Inquisitor folded inward. His head skirted above the altar, fingers pressing into the wood for balance. Gaerwn sat there slowly shifting back and forth on his haunches as if needing to gather strength. In his gut, Dorian felt a surge of remorse for pushing so hard. He wasn't one to come at anything with padded gloves on, which made him nigh on impossible to deal with outside of small doses; a fact that rarely mattered before.

Slowly, Gaerwn lifted his head and those white hot eyes rolled downward. "You're used to being the contrarian in the soup, but I am not," he admitted.

"I..." Dorian stuttered, wishing he could yank back everything he said in the heat of the moment. "I apologize, I should not have..."

"No, no, you are correct. You go about it with the subtlety of a chevalier mounted upon a nuggalope but I do hold my tongue whether it is needed or not. I only..." Gaerwn gripped tight to his forehead trying to worry apart a thousand concerns dropped on his head since Haven. Ever so carefully Dorian pulled the hand away.

Those endless eyes darted up to his, and Dorian smiled. "Blackwall?"

"Oh, no, that is not an answer I can..." Gaerwn stuttered, glancing around as if afraid spies were hiding in the walls. "Maker, I'd never seen a human with such a gargantuan beard before. The first time we met I thought he was a bear," he whispered his confession, fingers clinging tight to Dorian's arms as he snorted.

"It's possible our illustrious grey warden is in fact a bear someone took the time to partially shave, teach to walk fully upright, and covered in trousers." That got an even bigger snort from Gaerwn, a dangerous case of the giggles erupting from his normally dour tongue. Andraste's knickers, he was handsome when he laughed, which of course meant he rarely gave in to such base tendencies. A tender smile knotted up Dorian's lips from the sound. He was not a soft chuckler; no, the elf all but brayed at you in an infectious laugh that swarmed like a hive of hornets.

"Okay." Gaerwn shrugged off his drink giggles and glared dead serious eyes at Dorian, "For you, what about Iron Bull?"

"A heathen ox man?" Dorian scoffed, doing his best to be personally offended for himself and his ancestors.

Gaerwn wasn't having any of it as he snatched up the decanter and took a swig of that, "I've seen the way your eyes linger. In particular across his chest."

"I'm only concerned for the man catching a debilitating case of frost bite. Who in their right mind walks around without a shirt on while on the top of a blighted mountain? I fear the day we have to carry him back to camp because his entire torso froze solid."

His Amatus finished off the last of the cursed brandy before rolling an eye, "He claims it's due to his horns."

"Right, it's well known the Qun declared war on buttons," Dorian mused to himself. Softly, he plied his fingers together, letting Gaerwn place down the bottle before asking, "So, what are your thoughts on the Iron Bull?"

The elf shrugged, "Not my particular style."

"Maker's breath, what is your style? I fear we've gone through damn near every man in Skyhold, as well as a few women."

"Creators save you if Cassandra ever learns of it," Gaerwn whispered, miming buttoning up his lips as if anyone else ever ventured down into this small book depository hidden off the kitchens. "My type is...I'd think you'd be aware of it."

Dorian grinned at that, "I'm afraid there's only one of me in all of thedas."

"Thank the Creators for that. I don't have it in me to save the world twice," Gaerwn grumbled into his hands. "I enjoy, I don't know. Why are you on about it? It seems superfluous to scrounge out now."

Shrugging, Dorian stared at his feet. He felt a small flush start at his lower back, but managed to shake it off as little more than too much drink. Dorian Pavus never felt embarrassment for anything he did, that would imply that he cared what others thought. "Well, I thought it might be fun if we discovered someone in the hold who captured both our interests. For the purposes of a tête-à-tête-à-tête...?" He cast a quick look up at Gaerwn trying to appear impish. At first the elf looked as lost as a baby calf, the drink clouding that sharp mind, when the fullness of Dorian's thoughts struck.

That mask snapped back in place, immediately writing over any potential emotion he felt. "Oh," Gaerwn turned back around in his chair, his hands gripping onto the top of his thighs.

"It was only a thought, a lark, to pass the time and..." That damn flush grew up his back and reached towards his cheeks. He was used to being treated like a deviant by his friends, family, random strangers in the street, but the shame of it from Gaerwn burned brighter than any fire spell. "If you disapprove, I never need mention it again," Dorian grumbled into his mustache.

The Inquisitor's head lifted and he spun around in the chair, "I don't think less of you for it, I..." His shoulders slumped down and in an instant the mask cracked off, revealing a sharp pain clawing from the forehead tattoo down to the one on his chin. "My thoughts on that idea, the very concept, are conflicted, and..."

"Andraste's cankles, you've done it before, haven't you?" Dorian gasped, catching on to the man's personal shame. "No wonder you don't want anyone to know. The scandals alone would enrapture Orlais for seasons. The idea of the Inquisitor in a primal, body-heaving threesome, truly tongues around thedas would wag for ages to determine who else shared in that glorious moment."

"Dorian," he groaned, his fingers gripping onto the man's hand.

"I'm guessing you're not up for a retelling. Not even if I procure a pair of fuzzy slippers and light a fire?" His eyes darted around the dusty sub-par library, "light a few books on fire, I suppose."

"You find this hilarious. Delightful," Gaerwn sighed.

"Of course I do. To the rest of thedas you're the most uptight man to ever pick up a sword and try to save it. Granted, I've savored you loosening up those kinks nicely, but the idea is a bit like learning Blackwall enjoys collecting pink horse miniatures or Cassandra knits adorable sweaters for nugs."

Gaerwn's head slopped down, and Dorian slipped around to face him. With a hand cupped along his cheek, he tried to pull the man's face up but he was having none of it. "Would it make you feel better if I said I also find it a rather tempting image?"

He hoped that would ease the tension, but Gaerwn only snorted. "That's because you don't know the full of it."

"What...don't tell me a sheep was involved."

"Blessed creators," Gaerwn shot up, those steel eyes trying to stab daggers through Dorian, "no. What do you take me for?"

"So, whatever the truth is it can't be as bad as farm animals, right?"

Gaerwn glared, his tongue rolling across his teeth. No doubt he was sizing up the ability of him to dice Dorian to tiny pieces before the mage had a chance to retaliate. "You are infuriating beyond belief," he groaned, having arrived at the same decision that murdering a mage would be messy, raise suspicions, and be rather difficult with only an ancient quill for a weapon. Though, Dorian suspected if his Amatus had the will, he'd find a way to make it work.

"Well," Dorian rose up to lean his back against the altar. Folding his arms nonchalantly, he shrugged, "describe the participants. Was one strapping like an oak tree and the other lithe as a switch? Had halla gazed on knowingly while the three of you bedded each other across a pile of ferns? Did you swing into one of the human towns your clan passed and catch some sailor's eye? I can keep guessing all day."

Accepting his fate, Gaerwn stared past Dorian's shoulder, "They were Dalish, and one...was a woman."

"A woman," Dorian paled at that, shifting uncomfortably on his hip.

"Yes," Gaerwn nodded his head watching the shadows play out across the floor, "she was betrothed to the man, the man who also happened to be my best friend."

"Ah," Dorian groaned. His head teetered upwards to stare at the ceiling as he already knew where this story was going.

"I don't know why I agreed. No, I do know, but I can only blame so much on youthful indiscretions and...hope. Idiotic hope," Gaerwn sneered at his past self. "It was beyond awkward. I don't know what I was thinking, what I expected. I knew that nothing would come of it. I mean, he was to be married to her. I was a fool," he folded his head into his hands, crumpling up into his lap.

Softly, Dorian plied those tempting chestnut waves with his fingers, wafting the hair back and forth in an attempt to soothe an old wound he didn't mean to rip open. "You're not the first to become dangerously enraptured with his dear friend. I had two, in fact, when on the cusp of adulthood. Glorious specimens in their own right and they, of course, wished to only speak of women and parts there of. I did learn how to play the lecherous fool well watching them, when society didn't hammer in how."

A hand wrapped around Dorian's elbow, drawing him from his own memories of a pair of near brothers that helped push along puberty for him. "The worst part of it, I later learned that it was all her idea. Apparently she bore affections for me and wished to act upon it before settling down."

"I...have no idea how to respond," Dorian waffled back and forth on his feet. "Should I laugh? I feel as if I should laugh but, oh Amatus."

Gaerwn shrugged, his lips lifting up in a smile, "In retrospect it is rather hilarious, and did cement for me where my interests lie." He turned towards Dorian, a smolder igniting instantly in those eyes. Staggering up to his feet, Gaerwn wrapped a hand around Dorian's waist and tugged him tighter. "And always will," he whispered before diving down into a kiss.

The drink loosened the tight lipped Inquisitor's tongue greatly as it lapped across Dorian's parted lips and dove in to find a new home. Dorian moved to wrap a hand around Gaerwn's shoulder, when the elf gave in to even more baser instincts. Flattening that lithe body tighter to him, he shoved Dorian backwards until the mage's backside met with the altar.

 _Fasta Vass, he wasn't playing around!_

Nimble fingers dug up under the hem of Dorian's finery, the nails arcing across his skin as Gaerwn savored every inch of the man at his disposal. Never one to play the wilting wallflower, Dorian gripped onto the man's waist and worked for those illogical pajama's first of many trouser buttons. If lightning was given form it would be Gaerwn Lavellen's body. Quicker than the eye could follow, solid when it struck but as ethereal as a breath when out of his hands, every twist and snap of those lissome tendons and restrained muscles drove Dorian beyond sense.

He worked to undo the first of the slippery buttons, savoring the trapped bulge below begging to be let free, when the sounds of a door opening at the end of the empty stone hall echoed through their small refuge. Dorian's fingers paused as did Gaerwn's hungry lips. The pair shared a glance, both holding their breath as they listened to heavy steps crossing the echoey hall and growing closer. The Inquisitor slid away from the man about to ravage him on an ancient tome just as the door opened.

At first their guest didn't look up, he seemed to be far too focused on some piddly little problem in his mind but after stepping nearer, he glanced up and a flush rose against those rosy white cheeks. "Inquisitor," Cullen choked out. His eyes darted over to Dorian who remained nearly seated on the altar. Absently, Dorian's fingers touched his lips and he felt a smear of the brandy across them.

"Commander," Gaerwn all but saluted, his back stick straight as he slid closer to their intruder.

"I came for a book I was informed was kept down here," Cullen's eyes narrowed, that calculating general glare trying foolishly to piece together what was before him. It was a bit like watching a child attempt to jam a round peg into a square hole; a child who was dropped on his head often as a baby.

"Ah, of course," the Inquisitor turned around and ran his fingers over the dusty library. "What in particular?"

Their Commander nodded once at Dorian in a feigned greeting before he took over scouring the other side of the bookcase. "Fade Energy, The Veil, a Study There of," he seemed to recite from memory.

"A mage tome?" Gaerwn asked, dutifully scouring the stacks to try and be rid of the man.

Dorian chuckled at that, "Don't tell me the mage rebels have our famous templar leader scurrying about Skyhold running simple errands for them."

Scoffing at him, Cullen ran a finger across the book spines. "I was in the area and offered to look," was his only response. "I, uh, didn't expect to find anyone down here. So few use this space."

"That, is, um..." the Inquisitor blushed so brightly across his cheeks it tugged on Dorian's heart. He all but seemed to be scampering to try and hide his shame, which was strange. The few times Josephine, Leliana, Cassandra, and once Dagna stumbled upon the pair of them attempting to 'check each other for ticks,' Gaerwn was a picture of calming influence while Dorian buried his face. _Why was it now different?_

"Ah, I've found it," Cullen cried, yanking the book out and nestling it in his arms. He flipped through the first few pages, his eyes following along the words.

Dorian leaned closer to glance down the book and asked, "Do you require someone to explain the more esoteric symbols to you? For example, this is what we call a period."

That amber glare that delighted so many ladies at the ball winnowed down on Dorian, who only chuckled in response. "I believe I have it in hand. If you will excuse me," the Commander grumbled. "Thank you for your assistance," he offered up to the Inquisitor who turned and half heartedly waved.

"Glad to help, Commander," Gaerwn called out as the lion of Skyhold slipped out of the door and made certain to shut it tight behind him.

"Well..." Dorian turned a sly smile on his Amatus who bore an idiotic grin upon his lips. Gaerwn shivered it off, his hand trying to part that thicket of hair. "That was interesting," Dorian continued while the man turned around to face their mess of glasses.

"People regularly move through Skyhold. It is a fortress crammed tight with an army, after all," Gaerwn explained.

"Yes, but that's not what's caught my notice." He leaned nearer to the man and whispered hot breath across those delightfully sloped ears, "I never thought to ask you your thoughts on our dear Commander Cullen."

A shudder knocked down Gaerwn's shoulders, his fingers wrapping a slow rhythm upon the altar before he lifted his head. Those crisp, blue-white eyes beamed upon him, and Gaerwn shrugged, "Very well, I admit that there was some interest on my part when I first met the..." He noticeably swallowed, causing that delectable adams apple to waver, "Commander."

Dorian glanced back to where the man once stood, his furred shoulders stooped but a surprising smile upon that normally pinched face. "It's the growl, isn't it?"

"I...perhaps," Gaerwn blushed, honest to the Maker blushed while trying to hide his face behind his hands. It was both adorable and sickening in the same go.

"You...you didn't dare to try and flirt with our untamable Commander, did you?"

"Um," he scrunched up his nose, flexing those sculpted cheek muscles. "Perhaps, for a small moment...but he was quick to let me down."

"Gently, I pray," Dorian's voice whispered as he picked up Gaerwn's slack hands. The man nodded, a soft smile rounding up his lips. "Good, I would rather avoid challenging a templar to a duel," he mused sliding even closer to the man. Dorian paused a breath away from his lips, waiting for those eyes to lift to his.

"I'd vehemently deny the very idea of either of you dueling for anyone's honor, but..." pools of stark blue silver rose and Dorian felt himself slipping away in them. "Secretly, I'd cheer for you."

"Amatus," Dorian breathed before picking up that kiss they began prior to being interrupted. Gaerwn matched him in kind, meeting with a heat that could set all of Skyhold ablaze. That was actually a good point; this much dry kindling, Dorian's veins filling quickly with cheap liquor... Coughing, he tugged away from the man, getting a quick moment of regret lingering across Gaerwn's face for his retreat.

Slowly, Dorian drew a finger across the tattoos upon his forehead, following the loops and twists of some ancient accord the Dalish made with their gods. "Perhaps we should continue this exercise in your quarters."

"The two of us walking together to my room in the middle of the day? What will people say?" Gaerwn said, a rare sip of sarcasm in his words.

Dorian smirked, his mustache twitching up. "Let them talk," he said before plucking another kiss from the man. He meant his words though, and broke away from the temptation allowing Gaerwn to stagger to his legs. The Inquisitor gazed over at their mess and began to bundle it in his hands, as if he didn't have a good dozen other people in the hold to handle it for him. Gently, Dorian picked one of the mugs out of his overfilled hands and cradled it like a baby.

As they stepped near each other towards the door, casually Dorian suggested, "Perhaps we should try inviting the Commander next time."

"Dorian..."

"If we liberally applied alcohol to him he might give in. Though I suspect it'd require nearly lethal doses to work that sword out of his ass. You know, before adding another."

"Dorian!"

"It's only a thought," he smirked, cracking open the door.

Gaerwn's eternal struggles rolled across his face as he turned to glower at the man about to share his body, " _Fenhedis lasa_ , what am I to do with you?!"

Sliding near, his tongue dancing dangerously close to those elven ears, Dorian whispered, "I have more than a few suggestions, Amatus."


	3. Chapter 3

Rain should have been pounding in droves across the eaves of Skyhold, or whatever one called the roofs of fortresses stowed away in the mountains. Tears from the heavens themselves to match the never ending torrent that spread across the ground for the day's rites folding into the night. But the weather, or perhaps the Maker himself, was in no mood to be poetic and the night's sky remained dusted in stars and free of clouds. Dorian lay as still as possible, watching the moonlight climb across the Inquisitor's rug. The moon began the night full to bursting when they first crawled up to his quarters together, neither speaking much and both falling right to sleep in an instant. Now it was little more than a sliver as it ducked behind the tips of the mountains, shrouding most of Skyhold in an impenetrable darkness.

That fact should have bothered the man sitting in bed beside him, a book slopped across his lap, but either Gaerwn had already read the thing or he bore some preternatural ability to see in the dark. Dorian wouldn't put it past him. He already moved through the shadows leaping from narrow ledge to thin branch like a cat, why not have their eyesight as well? Snuggled below a solitary fur, Dorian tried to hold his limbs still. He would have preferred a bed of fine thread counts and mattress springs, less skins of dead animals and sawn logs but it was better than the bunk bed he shared with the other rebel mages. The company was far preferable as well, if for no other reason than Gaerwn didn't chew apart sunflower seeds at all hours of the night.

The bed shifted, almost rolling Dorian closer to the man, but he clung tight on his hip, his eyes shut tight as he listened to the gentle rise and fall of the man he almost... No, it didn't matter. It was foolish to worry. Adamant was long behind them now, even if...

"I know you're awake," Gaerwn whispered through the darkness followed by the sound of a page turning. Dorian froze, then made a grunt to try and mimic sleep. "That's not going to work."

Abandoning his ruse, Dorian sat up in the bed, the fur falling off his naked chest. For a beat, Gaerwn abandoned his book to glance over at the moonlight highlighting Dorian's skin, before returning to it without a word. A candle was dampened to almost nothing by a shield surrounding the flame except a solitary hole flickering light against the Inquisitor's face. He had his head dangling down, that impenetrable mask in place to blot away those pesky emotions he ran from, but the eyes... Dorian couldn't see them above the book save a flit of what looked like a depthless sadness hovering through those haunting depths.

"How did you know I was awake?" Dorian asked, uncertain where to begin.

"You masticate upon your mustache when you sleep," Gaerwn responded, flipping another page. He couldn't be reading it, not at that speed.

"I do no such thing," Dorian crossed his naked arms, trying to stick up for himself.

Slowly, the elf twisted his head, those stark eyes flickering with the candle as he eyed up the man sharing his bed. "How would you know?"

"I am not..." Dorian paused, exhaustion taking out his witty repartee. "Well, you often flail your arm about as if you're expecting an attack. I've taken more than a few wallops to my nose from an elbow or two."

He meant it as a joke, but Gaerwn winced and mumbled, "Sorry." His left hand continued to bat at the pages, shoving them further and further away until Dorian reached over and cupped the fingers.

"Amatus?" he breathed, willing his heat through the man who felt as if he was freezing.

The page turning stopped, and his eyes darted not to Dorian but down the stairs and towards the sip of light pouring from the great hall. "How long do shemlan memorials last?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea. She was Ferelden, yes? They seem to be of the opinion that mourning is an excuse to crawl to the bottom of a bottle, find another to scour, and then begin hurling things. I had to dodge a pair of dwarves chucking knives, axes, and finally handfuls of cake at a wall." Dorian turned towards the man and smiled with a shrug, "Southerners."

"She was more than Ferelden," Gaerwn sighed, that weary head tipping up to glare at the ceiling. "She was a Hero. Not only for them, but all of us."

Dorian knew next to nothing about the blight being of the ingratiating, drinking until he didn't feel anything stage of his life when it happened. Which, actually hadn't changed in ten years time. Tevinter itself was somewhat aware of the blight occurring in one of those backwater countries in the south. It bore little concern to him until Alexius and Felix. Suddenly, Dorian cared a great deal about the blight and what it meant to the people it touched. What it could have meant for all of thedas. Well, cared when he wasn't in the middle of drinking, at least.

Massive carnage and destruction, a black swath that obliterated all in its path, was poised to wipe away all of civilization without halt and to think all of that was stopped by such a small mage. One who also stepped in front of a blade for him. She didn't speak a word of it, already turning about to attack the demon who taunted them all, but Dorian noticed. He'd intended to buy her a drink after as thanks, at least to try and wipe away some of his guilt. Now it nested in his heart like a spider, its wispy webs clogging his veins.

Movement drew his attention away from his navel to Gaerwn, those eyes boring through the scrap of moonlight upon the rug. "Amatus?" Dorian began, trying to shake him out of it. "Are you alright?" He seemed to be taking the loss far harder than Dorian anticipated. While all expected the stoic Inquisitor to be silent during the funeral, Dorian noticed that he held his tongue instead of having nothing to say. "I didn't think you much cared for her."

"We did not get on. Perhaps some of that was my own fears and ego," he curled his hands up around his forehead, trying to slick back the mussed hair. Gaerwn mouthed a handful of words to himself before glancing over at Dorian. "What of you? Did you know her?"

"There were a few words exchanged on occasion. A mage to mage sort of greeting. _Hello. How are you this day? I'm afraid your coattails are on fire. Ah yes, I noticed, but thank you for offering to put it out._ I didn't pay her much attention, truth be told." Little more than another background player in their lives and she once saved the world for them all before succumbing to it.

"I wonder if she didn't prefer to blend in." Gaerwn chuckled a dirge before screwing his eyes up, "A rare trait we shared, I fear. Gone, because of the Inquisition, because of us, me. She stood against a blight, and I destroyed her."

"Gaerwn," he reached over to wrap an arm around the elf's shoulders and tug him to his chest. The taciturn Inquisitor fought it for a moment before folding into Dorian's embrace. It felt strange to be the one propping another man up, in particular this one who could move mountains with a whisper. Dorian was the stumbling clown there to amaze or entertain, and when the wine ran dry to break down in the corner, never the pillar gifting strength to someone so important to...thedas. Softly, Dorian trailed his fingers through the chestnut hair, trying to soothe his troubled brow. "She chose to remain behind."

"Yes," he nodded, the warm cheek digging into Dorian's chest, "it was her choice."

Despite being two or three floors away, singing broke through the cracks in the door and floors. The words were mumbled and impossible to make out, but the tune clung to Dorian's brain like a veil over a widow's face. Even the ones laughing, smiling as they told hilarious tales of the Hero of Ferelden, were bereft, their entire being stripped raw from the gaping loss. Few knew she moved in their ranks until she was gone, and now...

"It's not a victory for them," the Inquisitor whispered to Dorian's stomach. "We may have stopped Corypheus' demon army, but the cost... Every Ferelden in our ranks is afraid. If their impenetrable, hero of legend could fall then, then any one of us could be next."

"No, it," Dorian shifted, his chest constricting. Probably from the pressure of the man clinging to it. He felt it in his bones, the fatalist inside of him pointing at the maths and coming to one conclusion. With anyone else, at any other point in his life, Dorian would agree that their chance of surviving this without more loss and pain was impossible. But he found himself angry at that side of him, wishing it would stop being so damn smug for once.

Rising up, Gaerwn slipped away from Dorian's arms. He patted those delicate fingers together before turning over his left palm and glaring at where the anchor was. Maker's Breath, but Dorian was in a panic when he realized he stood physically inside the fade. Even now his heart skipped a beat at the memory of the Black City looming above them. More than fears for his own life and sanity being snapped apart in the fade, he worried about the man that accidentally pulled them inside. That terror stung deeper than anything the demon could ever manage.

Ever so gently, his Amatus turned in the bed to focus the fullness of those hauntingly perfect eyes upon him. He cupped a hand across Dorian's jaw, the thumb flickering with the mustache as he sat quietly with his lips partially parted. Dorian anticipated him coming in for a kiss, but Gaerwn sat apart taking in a deep breath and letting it out, his focus never wavering.

"If I fall," he began, his soft spoken voice crackling at the edge, "I wish you to know that...I love you."

"I..." Dorian froze, his eyes scanning across the man's face searching for the joke. That was how he'd always heard it before, a jape or laugh from someone who wasn't offering up his heart, just inebriatedly chuckling that he enjoyed Dorian's company when offered. Gaerwn waited, no smiles crossing those lips, no crinkling against his haunting eyes, only dead certainty that he meant every word. A deep abyss opened before Dorian and he whipped away from the man, struggling to unearth any word to smother the rising awkward situation.

"If...nonsense, you'll not ever," he swallowed, glaring out the window hoping that a dragon would swoop by and rescue him from this quagmire. "Fall? After all the mess we've been through to reach this point. No. They would never allow the Herald of Andraste to succumb now, not when there's so much story yet to be told."

Gaerwn lowered his hands to the bed and gently smoothed out the blanket. _Please don't be upset_ , Dorian repeated even as he felt both anger and terror stirring in his stomach. What was that man doing declaring such dangerous things for a deplorable tevinter mage? The implications alone; people would tear him limb from limb for treading into such leech infested waters. It wasn't supposed to be this way, nothing ever serious nor permanent, not for him. Not ever.

"You sound of Varric," Gaerwn whispered, rocking his head back and forth to try and stretch weary muscles.

"I take that as a grave insult," Dorian gasped, the sarcasm slotting over his open heart like armor. It was his only defense.

With a soft roll of his fingers, Gaerwn caressed Dorian's hand. He'd often follow the swirls of the life lines, the touch washing Dorian clean while the dalish rogue pretended to read his palm, but now it felt hollow. This was foolish, it all was. His decision to leave the Imperium, idiotic beyond measure. Signing up with a band of heretical rogues, impolitic. Taking to bed the leader with a taut body and tighter mind, stupidly arrogant. Realizing that every morning he fell harder for the man, waiting until it all... No, Dorian knew he was an impudent, often reckless man but he dare not hope.

"Dorian," Gaerwn's achingly soft voice whispered through the night air. His caress paused and he focused those eternal eyes upon him. "You don't have to say it."

'Say what?' he tried to come back at him with, but it withered on his tongue, all humor cracking in half from the conviction burning across that always assured face.

Gaerwn's left hand lifted to cup Dorian's slack face, his thumb pushing down the mustache he apparently chewed on in his sleep. No one had ever told him that before, few remained long enough to notice. Holding tight, the elf whispered the end of his sentence, "But I did. The creators only know what shall come tomorrow, or the day after, and...I suppose I've been deluding myself for a time. Thinking, no hoping, I was invulnerable." His eyes danced down Dorian's stripped chest, not with any hunger, but as if he needed to brace himself with his presence. "I feared facing my end without telling you the truth," Gaerwn smiled bittersweetly, "and now I need not."

With a soft sigh, the Inquisitor slipped out of bed, his bare feet landing upon the indifferent ground as he placed the book upon a nightstand. Dorian watched him, trying to not feel like an utter failure in everything. "What are you doing?" he asked the safest question of the multitude burning in his head.

Gaerwn tugged his pants off the chair and turned back. Moonlight illuminated a path down his bronzed skin from the tousled hair, deeper along the lithe chest, across the stick straight hips, and ended upon his meaty calf. All parts that Dorian took the time to sample, with both hand and mouth, afraid for the day it'd be yanked away from him. The memories would keep when someone's attentions or time would not.

 _I love you..._

Maker's breath, how could he say that? How could he possibly mean it? Love was an imaginary indulgence for people of his make. Gaerwn wasn't some decorated chevalier swooping in on his white horse and Dorian was far from a tittering lady in waiting. There was no courtly love to be romanticized here, no whispers of sweet nothings and empty promises of building futures, only two bodies momentarily coming together before the world yanked them apart. That was all he knew, all he ever knew, and anything else was terrifying to contemplate.

Unaware of Dorian's internal struggle, Gaerwn hopped one leg into his pants and then the other. "I should attend to my duties."

"Before the sun's even had a thought to prod its aggravatingly perky head above the horizon?" Dorian whined, gesturing towards the eternal blackness out the window.

Gaerwn shifted to look out at it, his breath held as he stood dressed only in the leather trousers. Starlight flickered across the white flesh, gifting the man with an ethereal glow. His pale ears protruded from the mass of chestnut hair, and never had Dorian been struck by how truly elven he was. Gaerwn was a creature out of myth, more than a herald, or a hero, he was hope personified and gifted to them from the Maker when the world turned bleak. An untouchable, unbreakable statue chiseled from pristine marble.

The vision shattered as the man smoothed the palms of his hands across his forehead. "Leliana will be leaving soon for Denerim. Blessed Creators only know what sanctions we can expect from the Ferelden crown and others after this debacle. I heard whispers of Dennet pulling up his horses and fleeing back to Redcliffe because of...of her loss. Many will blame the Inquisition for stealing away a Hero and I'd prefer to, I must be on top of it."

He lifted up an arm, trying to slide it into his tight shirt, when the hand snagged and he stumbled, elven curses rolling off the tongue. _Maker's breath._ Dorian no longer saw the great savior who stood before the monster out of legend to protect them at Haven, nor who swam the shark infested waters of Orlesian politics to rescue an Empress. The one people insisted could breathe fire and was blessed by Andraste with a hide impermeable to all arrows and magic. No, he watched as a man as fragile as Dorian - as any servant walking the halls of Skyhold - exhausted by his weighted brow fumbled to connect all the buttons. When Gaerwn set out for a mission, or stood before a rift with his hand exposed at the mercy of demons, Dorian pictured him as unbreakable as a mountain. He needed him to be or...

Merciful Andraste, he wished that warm skin he folded his body against was truly impenetrable. He couldn't fall. No, not now, not...

Gaerwn smoothed down his taut stomach, checking to make certain he didn't miss any buttons. The fire in his eyes dampened to a comforting flicker as they hovered over Dorian frozen in place. "You can remain as long as you wish. In the state Skyhold's in I doubt anyone will notice nor care." Nodding once, the elf moved to return to his duty.

Barely aware of his actions, Dorian scurried forward to snatch up Gaerwn's dangling hand. The man paused at the end of the tether. He didn't move to throw Dorian off, but he didn't turn back either. Screwing up his eyes, Dorian spoke rapidly, "You know that I'm not of a particular make to toss rose petals around and whisper bad poetry next to candles."

Gaerwn sighed, his head rising in annoyance, but he didn't slip away.

"And while I'm of the mind to enjoy my fun when found, I've never said before...ruminated upon, or needed to..." Dorian felt tears stinging in his eyes, each drop overflowing with the pained gaze of his father, the dark whispers from behind palms, each empty night and lonelier morning. But also floating in them was the way Gaerwn would smooth down his mustache before kissing him, chuckle at his constant needling of the world, and hold him close before sleep took hold.

Slowly, Gaerwn turned away from his attempt to leave. Dorian could feel those silver pools, no doubt exasperated and wishing he'd remove himself, winnowing down upon him, but he couldn't bring himself to look up. A hand curled over Dorian's head, softly threading apart his hair and Gaerwn whispered, "Ma vhenan."

"I love you, too," escaped from Dorian's heart. He'd kept it pinned down, wrapped in chains, and buried at the deepest pit for fear that releasing it would be his undoing. Lifting his weary head, Dorian met Gaerwn's eyes and found a whisper of a smile upon those lips.

"I know," Gaerwn said before leaning over to place that achingly sweet smile against Dorian's lips. Instinct took over, and Dorian wrapped his arms around the back of Gaerwn's head, pinning him to him, man to man as he tasted his love's mouth. Those remorseful tears evaporated, leaving his soul lighter than he could remember in years.

"Wait a moment," Dorian slid back, "what do you mean you know? You place that thedas shattering news upon my brow without a thought to drag the same from me and your only response is 'I know?' Sweet bloody Maker, you're ghastly! And to do it all while I'm sober no less."

Gaerwn chuckled at Dorian's exaggerated pantomime, complete with hands on hips to scold him. The laughter, even at his expense, came much easier for him than the sincerity. Gaerwn slipped his eyes closed and whispered to himself, _"Ma ane ma'din, emma sa'lath."_

"Mmm," Dorian purred, trying to tug Gaerwn closer, "I do adore when you, no doubt, curse at me in elvish."

"It was not a curse, for the most part," Gaerwn admitted. "It means..."

"No, no, don't tell me. It ruins the fantasy," Dorian snickered, his eyebrows undulating to try and wipe away the clinging sentimentality in the air. Despite his best efforts, it wouldn't vanish entirely, the bare fact that he knew someone in thedas loved him blooming under his skin. Maker, that called for a drink of some kind. Perhaps one set on fire.

"I should be leaving," Gaerwn whispered, still rooted to the spot.

"Nonsense. There must be a chantry law that after confessing ones inner most, ah, thoughts and desires to then ravage that person until one or both cannot walk."

Gaerwn's beautiful eyes sparkled as he tipped his head down, nearly all his teeth glinting by the fragile moonlight in a laugh, "I rather doubt that would be chantry law."

"There's nothing stopping you from making it an Inquisition one," Dorian smiled. "All right, perhaps Cassandra. I'd suggest slipping it into that thick tome of hers when she's not looking."

Wrapping his hands around Dorian's cheeks, Gaerwn rolled both his thumbs backwards before kissing him. Dorian tried to tug him down, his soul pleading with him to keep the man close, but Gaerwn could not be torn from duty. Pecking once more upon Dorian's lips, he rose up and whispered, " _Ar lath ma._ "

"I assume that's an elven recipe for leaf crackers," Dorian laughed.

"As you say," Gaerwn couldn't wipe the smile off. "But I do need to meet with a few people, make my presence known to those faltering under loss." He glanced out the window towards the sinking moon and swallowed, "Attend to Commander Cullen...and any other Fereldens who might find fault with the Inquisition in the moment."

"Amatus," Dorian let him walk away, but not leave, "you did all you could."

He paused at the landing, those nimble fingers curling over the railing, "No, not until I end Corypheus." Shaking off his dour mood, he beamed a smile at the man he left in his bed. "I will return when my work is finished." Dorian would have shrugged it off, not as if he didn't know how to flag down the Inquisitor when he was of a mood to, but Gaerwn folded his fist across his chest and that unbreakable loyalty roared up as he said, "I promise."

Before Dorian had time to pry that apart, the man he loved vanished down the stairs to slip on the heavy robes of the Inquisitor. Maker, it would be lovely when his shoulders could be free of it.


	4. Chapter 4

_9:44 Dragon_

A flock of Orlesians huffed and puffed while stamping their bejeweled slippers for such a slight. The Inquisition soldier left to hold them back only sighed at the toothless threats a few second son diplomats could offer up. And here Dorian thought the worst part of the Exalted Council would be braving the picked over buffet courses and regurgitated vinegar they call wine. Beyond the line of complaining Orlesians and growling Fereldens stood the Inquisitor in conference with a blonde, elven Inquisition scout. He seemed fully on point, focused upon the threat of a dead Qunari flopping into the Winter Palace, while giving out orders to her and anyone else in the area. Solid as steel was the Inquisitor, with an unbreakable spine. Then Gaerwn turned away from them all and, for a brief moment, cradled his left hand to his stomach.

 _Right._

Dorian shouldered past the Inquisition soldiers without a thought. The move surprised them so, it wasn't until he was a few steps past that they thought to call out. "Sir! You can't be back here."

"Is that so?" Dorian said crossing his arms.

The Inquisitor looked up from the ground and sighed, "It's all right. He's with me, sort of." He grumbled the final bit of his sentence under his breath but Dorian heard it.

Smugly smiling at the soldier fading back to his post, Dorian turned to watch the Inquisitor step into one of the small roofed nooks in the area. His voice echoed out the windows and through the courtyard, speaking more orders, requesting clarification from the handful of nameless soldiers gathered around him, and in general trying to appear the unshakeable leader he'd played for the past three years.

After a rousing speech, Gaerwn's eyes drifted over the mage standing in the back before he turned to busy himself with a handful of vellum upon what looked like a wardrobe. "What is it, Dorian?" he asked, not bothering to give him any attention.

"I thought we should talk. I'd prefer alone, but that seems to be nigh on impossible with you."

Gaerwn didn't turn to face him but he did snap out of his lean. Even at a distance, Dorian watched the muscles along his shoulders tighten to stone. "Very well," he sighed and cast an eye over the soldiers caught in the middle of a lover's tiff. "Leave us."

For a moment the flock stood there, eyes wide in terror before Dorian clapped his hand twice. "Come now, you heard your Inquisitor. Follow orders, fulfill the duty, for glory and all that."

"Yes, Ser!" one snapped out not at Dorian but their real leader before each one slowly filtered out. A few took the time to glare at the magister, but he didn't care or notice. Dorian was too busy watching how Gaerwn kept sifting through papers making certain his left hand didn't glance across anything.

After the final soldier vanished, and the ornate door rattled shut, Dorian stepped forward and asked, "When were you going to tell me that the anchor's causing you pain?"

The shuffling paused, Gaerwn's back freezing tight but he didn't turn around to face Dorian. His weary head tipped lower a moment before he growled, "Depends, when were you intending to inform me about your plans to remain in Tevinter?"

He'd hoped to avoid the truth of it until the council was over, not wanting to heap upon the man's worries with Ferelden and Orlais eyeing up the Inquisition. But of course Varric and his fat lip had to flap away and reveal the truth at the most inopportune time imaginable. Dorian tipped his head back to glare at the ceiling, neither man able to face the other.

"You know I am an ass," he mumbled.

"It's your speciality," Gaerwn added, no mirth in his voice.

Dorian's eyes slipped closed, his breath straining through a bruised rib courtesy of a qunari's poleax. "Forgive me, Amatus. I had not intended you to hear it that way."

"Really?" Gaerwn finally turned from the wall, and Dorian tried to not gasp at the anger broiling in those blue-silver depths. "Then when did you intend for me to find out? As I was about to return to Skyhold? A few months after without you by my side? I've been wearing a damn hole in my floor preparing for this Council, knowing everything I've built for two years hangs upon its head, and you-you..." He faded away, the mask slipping back in place to hide away the hurt Dorian ignited. "It is as you say, you are an ass."

What did he want from him? Dorian had no easy answers, life came with very few and he was, in truth, for once trying. He didn't want to hurt him for anything but life wasn't kind. People didn't live happily ever after, no matter what trite the story tellers peddled. Maker, if anyone should know that it'd be the Inquisitor.

"What would you have had me done? Hm? Send you a letter from Tevinter the moment I learned of my father's death? A black envelope containing a death notice and a Dear John letter scrawled upon the back? Would that soothe your aching heart better?"

"You could have been truthful with me, that is all I ask. It's all I've ever asked," Gaerwn snorted, the anger rising.

"The truth. You speak of it as if it's something cheap and plentiful to toss around. What of you, oh great truth sayer? You've been favoring that hand for awhile, haven't you? Hiding it from the advisors, making certain to touch little with your anchor," Dorian jabbed at the air, inching closer to the Inquisitor who tried to keep from looking over at it.

"It is of no consequence to you," Gaerwn stuttered. "Nor anything else in my life, as you made clear." He flexed his fingers and a brief hint of green sliced through the air. Groaning in agony, Gaerwn curled his fist up and jammed it tight to his chest.

"Amatus," Dorian panicked, sliding near to the man he loved and trying to cup the hand. Gaerwn kept it clenched against his skin, his eyes screwed up and a sneer to his lips as he fought through the pain. After a moment that felt an eternity, the agony seemed to pass and Gaerwn let his hand fall open revealing nothing more than the same set of calluses that used to stroke Dorian's body.

His beleaguered breath washed across Dorian's face, the two of them hadn't stood this close in months, not since he left Skyhold. Dorian yearned to skirt his fingers across the man's cheek, to try and dab up his perspiring brow, but he kept his hands to himself. "How bad is it?"

Dorian expected Gaerwn to fall back to his aloof status, it protected him from pain either outside or in, but those haunting eyes fractured and he butted his forehead against Dorian's cheek. Without asking, Dorian wrapped his arms around Gaerwn's shoulders, folding the man tight to him while he shook off the sorrow building his stomach. Maker, he wished his Amatus had thundered in rage and thrown him out on his ass. This was so much worse.

"When I first woke in Haven, with shemlan accusing me of things I barely understood, and pain ripping apart my hand I was certain I would die. If not with my throat slit and bleeding out across their chantry floors, then from whatever magic embedded onto my skin." Gaerwn paused, his forehead shoving into Dorian's chest before he slid an arm around the mage's back. He clung so tight it pained the bruised lung, Gaerwn's fingers locking against the crook of Dorian's shoulders to hold him upright. "This..." Gaerwn breathed, "this pain is a hundred times stronger."

"Venhedis!" Dorian cried. He'd watched the man walk through dragon fire with only a shrug and this broke him, the pain was tearing him apart. Andraste, what could he do to save him? To help him? He had to try. "Let me have a look, I'm certain I know a few tricks that could salve it up."

"Dorian," he shuddered against his body, "grand enchanters, Dalish Keepers, Avvar Spellcasters and others with skills beyond imagination have all looked at the anchor and come away with nothing. What hope could you have?" Gaerwn pulled back from his hug to stare into Dorian's eyes.

Shaking off the anger burgeoning in his gut, Dorian threw on his cocky smile. "How little faith you have, dear Herald. I know I can succeed because they weren't me. All those fancy titles and, I imagine, fancier hats couldn't possibly have the intelligence or willpower to...to," he stumbled from his cocksure perch as Gaerwn picked up Dorian's trembling hand.

He knew, he knew he was lying. Of course Dorian tried to look into whatever festered inside his lover's body. Sure, it closed the veil to banish demons but the cursed thing also cracked open the fade and the idea terrified him. Over the years, scrounging through the secrets of the magisterium he could get his hands on he found nothing. He had nothing to offer to the man he loved. Dorian was useless.

Slowly, Gaerwn turned Dorian's palm over and with the tip of his finger traced along those old life lines. "Ma Vhenan," he breathed, his voice brittle.

Tears dripped from Dorian's eyes, slipping down his cheeks as he tried to shake them off. He wasn't supposed to be crying, Maker, not like a scared child. For Andraste's sake, he was a Magister now. A Magister whimpering in fear for the death of the man he loved, a death he could do nothing to prevent.

Gaerwn drew no attention to the pathetic fall of tears from Dorian. A soft, bittersweet smile turned up his lips and he sighed, "You seem to have chosen the perfect time to untangle yourself from me. Before things became too messy."

"Kaffas!" Dorian shook his head, the tears halting as he turned the sorrow into rage at himself, "That wasn't what I... My intentions were never to..." His chin thudded to his chest and he moaned, "In giving you up I never thought the world would take you from it."

Gaerwn's hands, both of them, curled around Dorian's cheeks. Despite everything heaped upon the man - the crushing blow of disbandment from Ferelden, the memorializing from Orlais, hatred in any form from those who despised elves, Dorian breaking his heart - he smiled wistfully at the last man he should ever want to see and whispered, "Ar lath ma."

Maker. How long had he lived in fear of those words while also treasuring them in his heart? A selfish part of Dorian knew that when he told Gaerwn about his father he may never hear them again, but what scared him more was thinking that his love would never be able to speak them. Breathing deep, he whispered the phrase he'd been working on as a surprise before it was no longer an option, "Emma sa'lath."

Gaerwn leaned back, his sorrow replaced by surprise, "You speak elvhen?"

"Only a few phrases," Dorian admitted. "It helps with the work in Tevinter, turns out some of the slaves use parts for a code of their own. And I..." he bit down the trembling in his body to whisper, "I wanted to impress you."

Swallowing deep, Gaerwn flitted his fingers along Dorian's mustache. After smoothing it back into place, he thumbed the small soul patch. "You always have," he smiled wistfully.

That shattered Dorian's resolve. He came to the council with two requirements in his heart. One, that he'd tell Gaerwn the truth no matter the pain it caused, and two, he'd avoid sex for fear of it stretching out the inevitable. Grabbing the man's chiseled jaw, Dorian tipped his head back and plummeted deep into a kiss. All that time apart, the politics hounding both, and their vast differences fell away. Gaerwn's fingers swooped under Dorian's arm and he hooked into the back of his shoulders, tugging himself closer as they tried to chase away the specter of death pacing outside the door.

Breaking from that stern but handsome face, Dorian's hands caressed down the man's limber body, his chest heaving while their lips and tongues bonded. Dorian paused at his hips and, in a quick movement, he lifted Gaerwn onto the small wardrobe. Papers scattered into the air, missives and classified documents of the Inquisition drifting like snowflakes through the air. Paying them no heed, Dorian returned to lavishing his love's body with the only balm he could provide. That drab finery flew apart, Dorian undoing the buttons with the dexterity only a Tevinter mage who lived in buckles could. Gaerwn didn't release his hold upon Dorian's shoulders, leaving the red velvet to dangle open across that bronzed chest with a noticeable tan line.

Dorian smiled at the realization that the Inquisitor had been running shirtless through the woods again. Maker take nature and all its leech infested horrors, all save that image of Gaerwn nearly naked, his face at peace, while standing in a glenn overlooking a waterfall.

"You're perfect," Dorian whispered, his lips sliding near those delicate elven ears.

"Are you speaking to me or of yourself?" Gaerwn sighed. He leaned his head back and slowly beamed those haunting eyes without a hint of humor in them upon him. Dorian began to respond, when Gaerwn grabbed at the first of five buckles across his chest. The strap drew tight, constricting his bruised rib, before falling slack revealing even more of Dorian's shoulder and side chest to the world. As if he was reaching out to stroke that baby halla, Gaerwn's fingers skirted along the palmful of flesh on display. Dorian's eyes screwed up tight, his skin snapping alive from the man's gentle but certain touch. He wanted it, dreamed of it, but was scared to indulge for fear of the pain from letting go.

Shaking away the thoughts, Dorian grabbed onto Gaerwn's waistband. Prying apart the buttons, he unearthed the Inquisitor's best feature.

"B...b...blessed creators," Gaerwn moaned, his head flopping backward from Dorian's tender caresses. He knew what the man craved, but he froze, only able to trail his fingers up and down the same way Gaerwn would circle his palm.

The elf seemed to be of the same mind as he reached over to tug Dorian's hand away and thread his fingers through it. "This isn't the time," he said, straining to release the words.

"You..." Dorian watched their hands clinging together like branches from two different trees straining across a vast gorge to hold each other. "Nonsense, when one fears the end what else is there to do but drink, eat, and have sex? As the food is pitiful, and the drink even worse, why not indulge in the only remaining option?" He tried to smile, but Dorian felt his eyes watering on the edge.

Gaerwn's left hand curled around Dorian's cheek and he pulled his Vhenan to him for a kiss. In his gut, Dorian knew it was the last. If a miracle occurred, perhaps Andraste herself arriving to rescue her Herald, and Gaerwn walked away from this mess alive and unharmed, it wasn't a celebratory bed that awaited either of them. Duty, that four letter word Dorian tried to get his Amatus to shake off every chance he could, now cloaked Dorian's body and soul. He belonged in Tevinter, even as he left his heart in Skyhold.

Siding away, Gaerwn seemed aware of that fact as well. His eyes darted down Dorian's chest, unable to face the man hanging upon a thread, before slipping them closed. " _Lathbora viran_ ," Gaerwn whispered to himself.

"I'm afraid I don't know that one," Dorian confessed. "Now if you needed directions to the water closet I'd probably imply your mother is a nug, but with my velvety intonations it'd be considered a charming bon mot."

A whisper of a smile broke through the gloom clogging Gaerwn's face. Slowly he lifted his face and a twinkle sparkled in those endless eyes. "When this matter has finished," the tip of his teeth bit his lip and he swallowed, "I'll tell you what it means."

Finished. Over. Dorian was never very good at ending things and now all that faced him was a finality in his life, one way or another.

Skirting a finger across those elven ears Dorian smiled wistfully, "I shall hold you to that, Amatus."


	5. Chapter 5

_9:48 Dragon_

Hunter Fell was on the whole a disparaging town full of glassy eyed dead animals with their skins stripped, dried down, sewn to the back of felt, then tossed up onto the wall. Dorian expected to find it populated with nothing but people bearing an exact likeness to Blackwall, beards for both men and women stretching past their knees as they caroused and slapped each other while screaming "Excellent hunt!" at the top of their lungs across a decrepit tavern sticky with beer. Why the council thought to meet in Nevarra was beyond him. Why he agreed to play ambassador became a staggeringly idiotic idea with each passing hour. The Nevarrans pretended to listen to the Tevinter Magister wandering around mocking their outfits to their faces. The Orlesians kept a wide berth, leaving Dorian adrift in his own island while diplomats and various other high ranking officials floated around the room. In truth, he didn't mind it much. At least the only danger of being a pariah here was worrying about someone spitting in his food. He'd left three assassins tied up in his basement back in Tevinter. Maker, did he remember to tell the chamberlain to take care of them? No mind, they'd no doubt either find their way out or there'd be a new opening in the guild.

"Magister Pavus, how delightful for you to come."

Dorian turned and threw on a cheery grin, his mustache twitching at the footfalls of Duke Montfort. That man seemed to have an endless fascination with any and all who moved within the Inquisition's ranks all those years ago. Which meant he'd often try to cajole from Dorian stories, recommendations, drinks, and on occasion, his pants. None of it worked, not that Dorian wouldn't be of the mind for all back in Tevinter, but he had other matters stewing in his brain. "Cyril," Dorian tipped his head at the man and quickly glanced over his head.

"I didn't think the Imperium had any interest in our southern concerns," Montfort began what had been across everyone's lips as Dorian marched under the three dragon banner.

"The Imperium is rarely of one mind, often altering it mid sentence, and while some would turn a blind eye to the happenings here...others are trying to make a bloody change in this world," frustrations rose in the end of his sentence and he snapped a kebob stick in half, sending a mushroom flying across the room until it landed in the hat of an Antivan. No mind, either he'd notice and pluck it free, or it would birth more baby mushrooms and the man could savor a full meal later.

"I take it the Imperium moves about as swiftly to change as the council of Heralds," Montfort chuckled, bouncing back and forth on his tiny toes.

"Why try and fix things when your great grandfather once set down the laws to determine the color of imperial slave pens?" Dorian snipped before folding into a laugh. "Politics, it is a game for the pig headed and undead, both of which are the only ones likely to last long enough to pass anything through." He wished Mae was here, but someone had to keep an eye on Magister Augustus and his ilk. They were planning something, had been slipping bribes for months and slitting enough servant throats to dye the Waking Sea red. He should not have wasted his time coming here, work waited for him at home. The important kind that didn't involve standing around in place and pretending to like people. He...

The crowds parted and a man appeared at the top the stairs. Like in the old fairy tales a light landed upon his brow from the chandelier, casting only him in a golden spotlight. Time had not been kind to the chestnut waves Dorian remembered stroking, most of them fading to a dull grey. In fact, people would often whisper that a few years after the Exalted Council it seemed as if age walloped the Inquisitor across the face like a vengeful lover. At this distance Dorian couldn't make out any of the wrinkles certain to set across that always perturbed brow but he suspected the rumors were accurate. He was not a man who concerned himself about the status of his face, and spending so much time in nature was certain to crinkle that always bronzed skin.

Standing like a captain upon the prow of his ship, the Inquisitor gazed over the crowds with his arms tucked behind his back. He wore that same utilitarian finery Josephine ordered for them at the ball, though at some point he updated the red to a midnight blue. No prosthesis hung off his left arm, no doubt because all the ones he owned were lethal. Instead, he tied up the end of his sleeve with a knot and kept it hidden behind his back. The years may have clobbered his face, but it didn't touch the body. Even buried under all that velvet he bore a strikingly limber physique, his dexterity evident as he moved down the stairs like water.

People glanced up at their Inquisitor, glasses raised in toasts which he smiled and nodded at. Always generous to a fault, he had to be itching to run as far as possible. After the ball, when he was certain Celene was safe and matters tidied up, Gaerwn snatched up Dorian's hand to tug him through the courtyards and over the palace wall. The two of them ran through the night, the Inquisitor stripping off the trappings of his position until he stood in only a thin pair of linen pants under the moonlight. With the stars for candles, grass as a bed, and the lowing of cattle providing mood music, it was the most fun Dorian ever had outdoors and still ranked high in his top intimate moments.

Shaking off the hazy memories of youth, the Magister placed his drink down and tried to smooth over his mustache. Aware of the strip of white that flitted above the bow in his upper lip, Dorian tried to hide it below the black. Age was lurking for him as well. At least he could claim it was a distinguished air once he hit his fifties. "If you will excuse me," he began, sliding away from the Duke still talking to himself. Doria's eyes were suckered to the Inquisitor across the room.

Still working the crowds, Gaerwn bowed his head to one of the Grander Clerics out of the south - he couldn't remember which or from where - before he turned to... Dorian's footsteps paused, his tongue drying as Gaerwn slid close to a man clinging white knuckle tight to a staff. Not just a man, but an elf dressed in those threadbare robes the dalish mages wore. He was tall, taller than Dorian, with blonde hair spilling across his broad shoulders. When he glanced out at the proceedings, Dorian's assumptions were confirmed by the green tattoo braised across half the man's face. But worse than that, the man was handsome. A strong jawline yet plush lips and a striking nose all added up to the clear complexion of a man easily five years or more younger than him. Younger than both of them.

The dalish mage turned to Gaerwn, his jaw set as he seemed to whisper something - probably in elvish - to the Inquisitor. Ignoring the mobs of people with ties to every major political house in southern thedas, Gaerwn curled his hand through the man's runaway hair and tucked a braid behind those pointed ears.

 _Right._ Dorian shook his head, the resolve he'd been cultivating over the past week shattering in an instant. He couldn't do this. It was foolish to even consider. How long had it been since Corypheus fell? Seven years? It was doubtful Gaerwn would even wish to see him again after how he fled back to Tevinter. They spoke on occasion, wrote letters, but as the Inquisitor's crusade altered to fit with the chantry, and Dorian's focused upon local matters, they simply drifted apart. It wasn't the worst way to lose what they had. No shouting, no slammed doors, no heavy drinking and waking with a death wish in the morning. Only a lingering regret clung to his mind and the happy memories often mixed with an aching empty one.

Closing his eyes, Dorian turned on his heel. He began to offer an excuse to the Duke, but decided against it. People knew he was rude and unpredictable, why change that now? While the cocktail hour shifted to dinner for the first day of the week long council meetings, Magister Pavus worked his way through the crowds towards the door. A few people glanced towards him, his name trailing the mob, but he ignored it. Plastering a smile across his lips, Dorian didn't run from his past. He slowly sauntered down the stairs littered with diplomats from across thedas.

A few snippets of politics and drama floated in the air.

"...I heard Celene and Briala are rowing."

"Maker's sake. It'll be war all over again."

"Have you seen any from Ferelden here?"

"No, they're all in shambles after what happened to the King."

"Of course, how could I forget?"

The finery parted like ships squeezing out of the way to allow a small rowboat freedom into the Nevarran night. No blood ran the streets of Hunter Fell, a fact that actually surprised Dorian. With that name he'd expected grooves along all the cobblestones in anticipation of barrel chested warriors dragging their kills behind them to the tanners and butchers. This section of the city flickered with oil lamps dangling off the extended claw of a dragon hoisted upon posts.

Behind him, a smattering of applause erupted followed by cheering as no doubt someone probably leaped out of a bronto carcass as a joke. The bright warmth he abandoned waited in the past distance but he didn't feel in the mood to brace it. Glancing back at his quarter cape, Dorian cursed not thinking to grab a real cloak. This was no use against the southern cold. Maker, how did he forget how positively dreadful it was?

Despite having made his decision, Dorian glanced back once at the hall and he spotted a dark shadow standing upon the stairs. Startled by the unexpected shade, Dorian's fingers reached for the dagger on his belt, but when he glanced back it was gone. _This isn't Minrathous, you don't need to expect assassins lurking in every poorly lit corner_ he chastised himself even while keeping his steps near the lanterns. A river knotted through the city, the smell of dead fish and sailors wafting on the breeze but he couldn't see the black water from here. Only the starless night and his empty heartbeat followed him down the cobbles.

"Magister Pavus?" a voice echoed from behind. Dorian snapped straight up and spun back around. He carried no staff to humor the easily startled Southerners, but his fingers pried apart the veil in anticipation of...finding no one behind him.

 _What was...? Fasta Vaas!_ By the time he realized it was a distraction, he caught a black shadow flitting through the rooftops. It leaped off the edge of one and flipped through thin air before landing almost silently on the ground within stabbing distance of the Magister.

Slowly, the deadly assailant lifted up his face, revealing a pair of silver blue eyes. "Hello, Dorian," Gaerwn smiled, tipping his chin at him.

"Maker's breath, you damn near gave me a heart attack," Dorian scolded, shaking off his magic at the man. "Why are you leaping about off rooftops like an overeager rabbit when a normal person would waltz across the streets?"

"I believe you answered your own question," Gaerwn chuckled, stepping fully into the light.

Dorian was wrong. Age hadn't touched the man. All right, he bore deeper wrinkles upon his forehead, a nest of crows beside his eyes, and the jowls dangled off those high cheekbones, but he glowed with youth. Those eyes that entranced him in their first meeting didn't change a whit. And there was something very enticing about a man who did jump off a building with the grace of a cat. Even missing a hand, he was as nimble as ever.

"Where are you off to?" Gaerwn asked.

"The party was growing dull and I thought to myself I could manage much better alone in my rooms with a bottle of port and a book on cultivating mushrooms," Dorian smirked, folding his arms. The haunting eyes of the Inquisitor drifted down across Dorian's body, no doubt noting where time attacked him head on.

A brief smile turned up the Inquisitor's lips and he nodded at Dorian, "Would you like some company treading there?"

He should say no, point out that they were likely to see each other tomorrow or the next day as the talks wore on. But the no faded away as his eyes trailed across Gaerwn's body. How easy it was to fall back into that taciturn grace of the man. Nodding his head, Dorian said, "Yes."

"You'll have to lead on, I'm afraid I know little about the streets of Nevarra," Gaerwn said extending his hand out towards the streets to let Dorian for once go ahead.

"The way I remember it, you knew nothing of any street we found ourselves on. Was it Val Royeaux that you became turned around, headed down a wrong street, and somehow waltzed right onto a stage in the middle of a play?"

"I like to think I handled the surprise well," Gaerwn muttered following into Dorian's wake. They walked near each other to be a group, but not close enough to be together.

"Those actors certainly rebounded quickly. As I recall we stumbled across you as you were delivering the line about a great dragon swooping out of the sky to eat all their gold."

"A flub on my account, but apparently the idea caused such a commotion they worked it into the actual play," Gaerwn smiled. He seemed softer than Dorian remembered. Not fatter by any means. The man was incapable of wearing any excess weight across that snapping body. But his eyes curled up more, his sagging cheeks rising to fullness, and the lips flitted about with an easy smile instead of having to tape one on. He was happy. The thought both stuck a splint into Dorian's heart and also made him smile as well.

Silence fell between the two as they walked towards the outer boroughs. Few Nevarrans traipsed their own streets, most either asleep or at the party the two were attempting to leave. "I heard talk that Magister Pavus was going to be attending the talks," Gaerwn began, "and hoped I could speak with you."

"Seems there was some dust up on the border and rather than send anyone of importance they decided to sacrifice me to the gawping southerners. I thought a few weeks of dining upon someone else's ticket might be enjoyable and came," his easy manner slipped away with the end of his sentence, the silence crashing harder upon his brow. Gaerwn didn't say anything, his right hand swaying close to Dorian as they walked. How easily he could reach over and grab it. Was it as cold as Dorian remembered? That lithe elf seemed to be unable to warm up under the thickest of blankets.

"I'd hoped to speak with you as well," Dorian coughed out, his voice hoarse.

"Oh? Was that why you disappeared into the night and I had to give chase?"

Dorian tried to ignore the man's bright smile. "Tell me that is how you flag down everyone's attention, in particular the Divine. Though, seeing as it's our old Spymaster, she most likely does the same to Grand Clerics." Gaerwn chuckled at his misdirection, seeming to enjoy the night for what it was. There was no reason for Dorian to puncture their light banter. "I spotted the elf you were with."

"I see," Gaerwn answered in his diplomatic not saying anything way.

Dorian tried to not roll his eyes at the obvious move he'd seen the elf perform a hundred times before. "The Inquisitor's infamous 'I see.' Sweet Maker, the multitude of people it sends scampering away into the night with soiled trousers is remarkable. But, I hope you are aware that it is never going to work on me." Gaerwn seemed to be chastised by the comment, his eyes darting along the street causing Dorian to soften. "Dalish I assume?"

"Yes, he is the first to the keeper of a clan we've been working closely with. We've been struggling with the Divine's attempt to return parts of the dales to our people but...you know how politics goes."

"He looked about as happy as Blackwall on bath day standing there surrounded by the wolves," Dorian chuckled.

Gaerwn groaned and tipped his head back to watch the stars. His steps slowed and Dorian followed suit, the mage watching the elf stare through the sky. Far in the distance, the green ribbon hung, illuminated brighter at night. The scar never faded. "It will take some time until he feels comfortable around humans. Most Dalish would rather chew their own arm off than have to deal with shemlan."

"And you brought him to a council meeting?" Dorian scoffed. Gaerwn shrugged as if to say 'everyone has to learn at some point.' "Your Keeper must be happy."

He'd met the woman once, after Gaerwn all but blackmailed him into attending one of their dalish clan meetings. Dorian was surprised at the multitude of elves frolicking in one place, and he wasn't even the only human in attendance, but what stuck in his mind was the hour long tongue lashing the Inquisitor received from a tiny, elven woman. It was all in elvish, of course, and Dorian smugly assumed it was due to his being of a not female persuasion while on one of their hunter's arms. Gaerwn chuckled at the idea, but admitted that it was his shape of ears that stuck in the Keeper's craw far more than what he carried in his pants.

"The Keeper would _prefer_ if I returned home," Gaerwn sighed. They'd barely moved, their steps slowing to a standstill beside the boats slopping against the waves. The river was little more than a creek, Dorian able to spot a woman tending to some night business on the other shore.

"She does not approve of my time with the shemlan chantry or other governing bodies, even if it does get them stability the Dalish haven't known since..." Gaerwn waved his hands through the air, and his silver eyes darted up to Dorian. A smile turned up his cheek and he shrugged, "I will try to refrain from quoting historical dates at you."

"Andraste's Ass, I'm Tevinter. We can't take a piss without remarking upon how the stone we're wetting is from some ancient Archon's lost estate nearly three hundred years old."

Gaerwn chuckled, the sound trilling up Dorian's spine. "Which is why I'd prefer to not. How is your work in the Imperium? We haven't spoken in...awhile, I suppose."

"More than awhile, two dozen or so whiles," Dorian admitted. Due to the narrow crossway, they had to slip closer together or risk one of them falling into the river. Maker, that'd be just what he'd need, to have to pull a wet and grateful Inquisitor out of the water before taking him back to his room to get him out of his drenched clothes. Knowing his luck, someone finally taught the man how to swim over the intervening years.

Shaking off the momentary thought, Dorian spoke, "Two steps back, one forward, and a dozen or so in a circle is how I'd describe it. Progress is such a fanciful ideal I thought to have the word cross-stitched and hung across my mantle, because there's no other way I'd ever hope to see it in my lifetime."

A hand skirted over his crossed arms, and Dorian turned from his grumble to catch Gaerwn's compassionate eyes. "Change can't always come at the tip of a sword."

"Did a chantry mother tell you that? I'd never expect such trite trifles to fall from those dour lips," Dorian smirked. He wanted to wrap his fingers around Gaerwn's hand but it slipped away back into the night alone.

"No," Gaerwn sighed, his gait increasing as if he wished to run away from the idea. "Though..." he prodded at his closed eyes with his fingers, trying to work through no doubt his own gridlock, "I grow tired of their constant attempts to convert me. We may serve the chantry, as far as the cover story for Ferelden and Orlais are concerned, but that doesn't mean I must put my faith in their Maker or prophet."

Dorian cocked his head to the side at the man shaking off the political bullshit, "How many times have you had to yell that at people before bashing their heads in with a thick book?"

Tugging down his fingers, Gaerwn couldn't stop a smile, "Not as often as I'd wish. One day," the smile faltered and his eyes turned back to the scar in the sky, "it shall be finished, however the matter comes to an end."

He never spoke of Solas. Dorian was no help on the matter of Gaerwn's entire religion being hurled onto a pyre and ignited to ash by someone he considered a friend. Despite being out of his life, Dorian knew the pains Gaerwn bore for pursing the end of a man who may have been his people's trickster god, but was also a man trying to remake the world for elves. There were days when Gaerwn would rant through the sending crystal about how it'd be best to lay back and let Solas finish off what Corypheus began. How many times can one man save the world? But it always passed, the man incapable of breaking his oath, though Dorian had no idea who he swore it to.

"Will you return back to the woods to frolic the way an elf should?" Dorian asked, trying to lighten the air.

Gaerwn's hand wafted down his chest, tugging at the buttons bearing the Inquisition eye. "I don't know if that's where I'll wind up. Assuming..." he didn't elaborate on the part about him having to survive his vendetta against Solas. "I fear over the years I've grown rather used to various human amenities."

Dorian chuckled, "I noticed your pair of boots. They're drab and completely out of fashion with those tacky brass buckles but you did manage to get them on the proper feet."

That got him a groan, the man tipping his head back to stare at the star filled sky. White light from the moon glinted across Gaerwn's nose and cheekbones. As he shut his eyes, he looked like he was cleansing himself by the glow of the moon. Maker's sake, a man should never be this beautiful. Particularly one Dorian knew was beyond his reach.

"Ceilings," Gaerwn breathed, "I'm afraid I've become addicted to them. Walls as well. They're very useful."

"You're, how did Sera delightfully phrase it, taking the piss out of me? You enjoy walls now?" Dorian started, watching the man slowly turn to him with that unreadable mask across his face. "I seem to remember a time at Haven when Josephine and Leliana were in political meltdown trying to find you one morning. It grew to the point of them enlisting Cullen's help, all your advisors fearing that you'd vanished into the woods never to be seen again when what do we find, but our Herald of Andraste fast asleep in a pile of pine needles."

"It was louder in Haven than I anticipated. So many people in one place, talking and moving," Gaerwn muttered, sliding back and forth on his toes. "And..." his frown slipped away to reveal a snort, "I thought humans were exhausting then. I had so much to learn."

"We were all rather naive and idealistic. Youth will do that."

A gentle smile lifted up Gaerwn's lips and those silver-blue eyes canvassed Dorian. "They were exhausting, exhilarating years full of fear and worry...that I wouldn't trade a moment for."

With only the moonlight glinting off the river and the solitary glow from a single lantern upon the docks, the man's smile illuminated his face reviving the ache in Dorian's stomach he thought he'd grown past. Pointing down the twisting road towards his quarters, Dorian began to walk. "My rooms are further this way."

Gaerwn turned to follow, "This far from the council chambers?"

"I am an evil Tevinter Magister after all," Dorian shrugged, "who should really end more of his sentences with a good mwhahahaha. It would add to the gravitas of the situation."

"I suppose," Gaerwn didn't say. He had a lot of placeholder sentences to spit out when the man didn't want to talk but people expected it of him. It took Dorian near on a year to catch on that his use of, "Please continue" meant he hadn't been listening to a damn word he said but was enjoying the show.

"Well...what else is there to talk about in Nevarra? The walking dead are always a treat, provided one doesn't stumble into your picnic unannounced."

Gaerwn snickered at the thought, "Have you spent much time with their Mortalitassi? I don't know if it has any connection to the Tevinter studies but..."

"Maker's sake," Dorian's head hung down, "the absolute last thing I wish to discuss with you is the theory and magical practice of reanimating corpses. And I rather doubt it's high on your list as well. I remember how your eyes would glass over if I brought up the word lyrium or fade."

Gaerwn used to wilt when Dorian caught on to his trickery, but this older man cracked a laugh. "True, there are many meetings I take where I let people talk over me because it's easier." He lifted up his left arm and tapped against the stump. "I miss being in the field, knowing that I'm making a difference instead of reading about it second hand in a disingenuous scout note."

"Does it," Dorian began to reach over when he paused. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Gaerwn sighed, "whatever magic he used to take it away halted the progress of the anchor before it did any more damage. How little I noticed the constant pain until I was finally freed of it. I...I was ready to call to Falon'din in that moment. Thought I'd served my purpose as valiantly as possible, bore no regrets." He turned those haunting eyes up to Dorian and gestured to the man to unknot his sleeve.

Keeping his fingers steady, Dorian pulled upon the blue velvet until it fell free. As he rolled it up, exposing the smooth stump of skin with a soft scar where the flesh knit together, he sighed, "I'm grateful you remained."

"As am I," Gaerwn admitted. Dorian lifted away from the arm to fall into his silver pools. He spotted a glimmer slipping below the surface quickly, but it was there. For a brief moment, a hint of want shimmered in those endless eyes. Trying to shake off the awkward moment, Gaerwn twisted his head, "There's still so much to do. It seems thedas shall never be rid of me."

"Naturally," Dorian sighed, wishing he could do more, be more. For anyone else Dorian was certain in his steps, knowing that if he wobbled or fell it was a matter to be solved later or of no concern, but Gaerwn made him strive to always be better. Which, sadly, was their undoing.

"So," he shook off the maudlin thoughts and gestured down the line of housing stuffed with what he assumed were the unwanted dignitaries. A few guards stood watch, some of them sporting scars that looked as if half their flesh was flayed off their skulls and stuck back on. "Let's assume that our little wolf problem is solved, the chantry finally crawled out of the crater of its own making, and you're free to go wherever you wish. What would you do?"

"I..." Gaerwn wobbled a moment on his shoes, uncertain about the riding heels. "I hadn't put much thought in it beyond not returning to the clan. They are...better off without me cluttering up their lives. There was land near the Wounded Coast I thought was picturesque. You may remember it, where the red templars had camped on a small island with an observatory."

Dorian chuckled, "Maker's sake, so while we're fending off red templar attacks you're scouting out potential locations for settling down in your old age?"

Shrugging, Gaerwn only offered up, "I was the hunter for my clan."

"Would you, you'd probably live in your own single cabin out on this small solitary island. The Inquisitor's island. Built by your own hand."

Gaerwn smiled widely at the idea and shook his head, "No, that seems very unwise. There was a time when the Keeper thought I should try to apprentice for our clan's craftsman. I lasted all of an afternoon. I'd never seen the man turn such a bright shade of red before."

"Something the fabled Herald of Andraste isn't a wonder at? That shall shock the chantry to its very core," Dorian snickered. A tuft of the grey-brown hair flopped across Gaerwn's forehead and he yearned to tug it away, to grace his fingers over that soft skin.

Unaware of Dorian's thoughts, Gaerwn glanced up at the stars. He breathed a moment before saying, "Though, the solitude of a cabin does sound enchanting, provided I..." His thought trailed away as those crystal eyes closed, a thought slipping across his always churning mind. Slowly, he opened them and turned to Dorian, "What of you?"

"Me?"

"When your work is finished in Tevinter? In your well tended, distinguished age, what do you intend to do?"

Dorian smirked, "Assuming I make it to that ' _distinguished age'_ with assassins always lurking in every vaguely dark corner and water closet... I rather suspect I shall step into my dusty, bereft estate alone, speak a single sentence declaring my work over, and succumb to a heart attack ten years in the making."

A snort broke up Dorian's macabre musings, and Gaerwn shook his head, "Some things never change." He twisted back and forth on his feet before speaking, "Well, if that plan doesn't work out, and both of us survive beyond what thedas needs of us..." Gaerwn reached out with his right hand to grip onto Dorian's arm, "You're welcome to stay in my cabin on Inquisitor Island."

"Amatus," Dorian sighed in rapture at the idea. Slowly, Gaerwn's fingers drifted lower until they knotted around Dorian's. He didn't speak, but the Inquisitor softly swung their clasped hands together a moment before releasing him. It was hard to tear his eyes away, but Dorian glanced up to realize they'd reached his suite. "This is my door. You could come up and see the ghastly drapery they chose, I believe I know where all that plaid weave you sold off wound up. I also managed to sneak in a proper bottle of tevinter gin. What they pass down south is little more than glorified paint thinner. It'd give us a chance to catch up properly."

Gaerwn's tender lips parted and ever so gently he nibbled on the bottom one before sliding back, "I should not. They will be expecting me at the party yet, being a guest of honor and all. It's a wonder no one's come to find me yet after the gruff guards attentions only an armed elf can receive."

His babble touched Dorian's heart, washing clean the sting of the rejection. Reaching out, Dorian clasped his hand against Gaerwn's cheek. The stream of conscious faded as he leaned into Dorian's warm hand. He was right, the elf was still cool to the touch. Running a finger against a new scar upon his Amatus' cheek, Dorian sighed, "I am heartened to know the loyalty of the Inquisitor remains unbreakable."

Gaerwn's eyes slipped closed and he whispered, "I try."

Dropping his hand, Dorian stepped back, "Then I shall not keep you. It was good to see you again."

"Likewise," Gaerwn muttered. His fingers skirted along his cheek where Dorian touched him, as if he was in shock, before whispering, "ma vhenan."

He'd thought they were finished, certain that the man guiding thedas like a poler through rapids would have locked his heart off long ago to that impetuous young mage out of Tevinter. It wasn't much, little more than a silly promise made for a far off future neither may ever see, but it was the first taste of hope Dorian had felt in years. He wanted to reach the last page of this tale.

"Good evening, Inquisitor. I hope we can meet up for dinner sometime after all the dull talks are finished."

"Of course, assuming I can ditch the Dowager and her..." Gaerwn waved a hand, "it will be no problem. 'Til tomorrow, Magister Pavus." Bowing deeper than any did in the magisterium to him, Gaerwn turned on his unsteady heels and marched back to the party and the elf he left waiting for him.

A thought struck Dorian as he watched him slip into the shadows. Raising a hand to his mouth he called out, "You never did tell me what that elvish phrase meant."

Gaerwn's steady steps halted. He took a moment, no doubt trying to remember the occurrence so many years prior, before turning back and smiling, "Lathbora viran, poorly translated it means the path to a place of lost love."

Maker's sake, that man, that glorious specimen of a man always thinking far ahead, shoring up his steps, and offering a helping hand even after it'd been slapped away. Tipping his head one last time, Gaerwn turned to face the dark when Dorian called out, "Good luck trying to not spend the entire night fantasizing about me all alone in my room naked under silk sheets."

His Amatus didn't pause in his step, that soft voice ringing through the silent houses, "Goodnight Dorian."

* * *

 _Dozens of years later._

 _Or perhaps only a sleep._

 _Who can say?_

Delightfully psychotic chirping erupted from outside his skull. Be rather disconcerting if it began inside, but he'd grown used to the tweet tweet of ecstatic birdies shitting themselves outside the window ledge. Dorian risked an eye then another to find the sun had more than risen, it draped its golden glow across the primitive wooden floor and up to the well tailored bed. Below the sounds of chipper wrens and idiotic gulls washed the pounding of the sea, waves forever wearing against the rocks just outside the thrown open window.

Groaning, Dorian moved to mash the pillow over his eyes and roll over, "Why did you leave the blighted window open?"

A hand plucked the pillow away before lips kissed against the back of Dorian's neck. "Because," Gaerwn answered patiently, "it was a beautiful night."

Rising to his hands, Dorian spun in the bed to face his Amatus. Dawn's encroaching light lit the man's snowy hair ethereal, but it softened the wrinkles from solving all of thedas' problems. Staggering up to sit, Dorian's fingers followed the softer but still lithe line from the elf's elbow and up his bicep before landing upon the shoulder. Digging in, Dorian pulled himself to the man he loved and whispered, "It's a beautiful morning as well."

Gaerwn didn't have a chance to respond before Dorian kissed him, savoring the delightful taste of a man he'd waited his whole life for. Popping away, Dorian shrugged a shoulder and smirked, "After all, I'm in it now."

"By all the..." Gaerwn groaned, rolling his eyes. But the consternation slipped to a smile as he leaned his shoulder onto Dorian for support and slowly stroked the grey mustache. He was instantly hypnotized by the smooth flow of his Amatus' fingers, the flare of that still bronzed skin by sunlight, and those eyes. Maker, even in the darkest of days, Dorian could never forget the burn of those silver-blue eyes peering over at him, wanting him, loving him.

A thought rattled through Dorian's brain and he wrapped his arms around Gaerwn. The man fumbled a moment, not used to playing the small spoon, but he rallied quickly and folded into Dorian. With his cheek against Dorian's sparse chest hair, Gaerwn wrapped his hand around while Dorian rifled those thick, snowy waves.

"This seems impossible," Dorian whispered to himself, "you and me here together without anyone attempting to yank us away for duty and honor and other plaque worthy words." Gaerwn curled tighter to his mage, a gentle murmur breaking from his lips but no words.

"Tell me," Dorian's warm breath danced over those perfect elven ears, "is this reality, a dream, or a trick of some desire demon?"

Rising up, Gaerwn beamed on him those haunting eyes that caught Dorian from across chantries, battlefields, and crowded council meetings. A smile twisted up his lips and he whispered, "Does it matter, vhenan?"

Catching the man's always clean cheeks in his fingers, Dorian tugged him close to whisper, "Not for a moment, Amatus." Holding Gaerwn tight, Dorian pulled him for a kiss, having every intention to make up for lost time. Or, if this was a dream or trick of the fade, to savor what few moments it gifted him. Either way, that most foreign and beguiling of masters flitted through Dorian's heart. With both hands, he would cling to this happiness as long as possible.

Few ever traveled to the small scrap of land off the Wounded Coast. Some claimed it was haunted, having been the sight of terrible red templar or perhaps venatori experiments during the dark days of Corypheus. Others would only smile knowingly about the elven man often spotted off shore running around shoeless while a well dressed, distinguished gentlemen clucked his tongue at him. To the area it was known as Inquisitor's Island, but the sign hoisted next to the dock that creaked in the wind proclaimed it "Lathbora viran."


	6. Chapter 6

_Surprise!_ _First off_ _ **Explicit Warning**_ _for this chapter! Wee-Yew! Wee-Yew! Wee-Yew!_

 _This is a special extra that takes place years after the events of Inquisition when Dorian stumbles upon the Inquisitor sneaking into his study. It was also my first attempt at an MxM sex scene so please, be gentle._

* * *

His doors made an inescapable creak followed by a screeching whine as they closed. Most probably wouldn't even notice, going about their days from one end of his estate to the other, but Dorian paid attention when the whine rose above the imposing silence of someone attempting to sneak into or out of his home. Tapping a foot on the rug, he waited a moment while staring down at the second level as a party was commencing.

All in all it was a rather humdrum affair, and sadly he only had himself to blame for it. His heart wasn't in it, more a time marker to kill off the season before fall began than anything worthy of caring for. Then a face appeared at his door that he never could have anticipated. Trying to keep himself unperturbed, he flitted from arm to arm trading hilarious anecdotes and warning everyone about the subpar wine. But always at the corner of his eye he caught the white hair combed into something almost respectful, the lithe body swaddled in a tight silk doublet, and those eyes.

Blessed Andraste, he could never misplace those eyes.

After a count of twenty, Dorian padded towards the door to his office that he watched the naked heel of a foot vanish inside of. He could be sneaky about the whole matter, or raise his hands in ire and fire to banish the thief out a window. But all he really wanted were answers, though he remained uncertain just what questions were involved.

Lifting the latch for his study and occasional solarium if he despised whoever popped by too early, Dorian stepped fully into the lightened space. Columns of marble painted with the life story of Andraste held up the roof to his home and filled the overstuffed corners of the office. His desk was magnificent, nearly ten feet long with curved edges and gold inlaid into the top to form the symbol of his little gang of do-gooders. Secretly underneath he had silver poured into gouges to create the Inquisition's eye, but few ever wound up under his desk to look.

And any in that position were too distracted to bother with scoping out his furniture.

A few bookcases lined the walls, mostly stuffed with stodgy reading on politics and law riddles that flourished in the Magisterium. All of his better tomes were in the library, but the ones he needed to have at hand for when yet another crisis arose in his beloved homeland circled around them. There were a few crystal display cases propping up some of Dorian's affects of a varied life scratched out serving in the Magisterium. It was around one of these that he spotted the man, his hand literally stuck inside the proverbial cookie jar.

"Well," Dorian tipped his head, doing his best to swallow down the sting in his velvety voice, "now I have my answer."

"Dorian?" the unexpected guest and even less expected thief yanked his arm back and tried to hide it behind his back. The man need not bother trying to sequester his other hand as it was taken from him many years prior.

"I was curious what could have possibly brought Inquisitor Lavellan to my door after all this time," Dorian sighed while walking deeper into his study. As he moved, the candles all sputtered to life, casting the assailant in the harsh light of truth. "And it appears it was to burgle me."

"This isn't what..." the man looked shocked beyond counting, as if he truly thought there weren't a constant press of people attempting to raid Dorian's home - if not to kill him outright - to sneak away his relics for their own collections.

Tapping a finger on the buckle that kept his peacock feathered pauldrons in place, Dorian sighed. "Really? Gaerwn? You're going to throw out that old chestnut first? 'It isn't what it looks like. I tripped into your private room that was locked full on accident and righted myself upon this ancient gemstone.'" Dorian paused and tipped his head to his old lover. With pursed lips, he finished with, "'You're imagining things.'"

"I'm not denying my presence," Gaerwn began, always getting tripped up by that conscience of his. Lying was not in the dear Inquisitor's wheelhouse. "Only what you imagine my intentions to be."

"Truly? And what, pray tell, do you think your intentions appear to be? You materialize at my door unannounced, unexpected, when I happen to be ensconced in entertaining a few less than fine guests of the Imperium. And the moment my back is turn, you vanish away up here to touch my things."

Gaerwn bit down onto his lip, those hauntingly blue-white eyes dipping to the ground in thought. Or perhaps he really was coming to terms with his foolish plan.

"Oh Amatus," Dorian sighed to himself, causing the Inquisitor to whip his sight right at him, "if you wished to rifle through my drawers you need only ask."

"I was not attempting to... You think me a thief?" he placed his remaining hand to this chest, rifling up the minor bunching along his doublet that went out of fashion two years ago. It was a wonder the Inquisitor was allowed to any of high society's functions, but one could get away with the most egregious of slights after saving the world. The Marcher's champion of Kirkwall was proof enough of that.

Pacing closer, Dorian rifled through a few of his shelves checking to make certain his knickknacks remained where they should be. He found nothing amiss, save the gem that the Inquisitor once had his callused fingers around. When Dorian approached it, he caught a glint of his reflection in the multicolored facets. Time had been kind enough to him, his mustache growing more salty in the intervening years, and the wrinkles perched beside his eyes giving him a dignified look. But when he stared into that gem he saw the lie he was hiding behind, the ephemeral man who couldn't be touched much less scarred by anything of this world.

His eyes shut tight and the facade shattered. Dorian took in a deep breath as he whispered, "What hurts most is that you didn't even think to ask." When he looked over at Gaerwn the elf was shifting in place, clearly wishing to leap out a window to avoid this tongue lashing. "Amatus, there is nothing in my possession that I wouldn't hesitate to dedicate to your cause."

"Dorian," the man leaned forward a moment as if he intended to embrace the broken Magister, but he settled back on his heels.

"So," he shook his head, trying to focus on the matter at hand, "what do you need this for?" Dorian hefted up the gemstone some called the Eye of Marcoto. It was hard to say if the legend was true, but it was large and shiny. Sometimes that was enough to convince the drooling masses of an object's worth.

"Will it seal up another rift between this world and the fade?" Dorian asked while tipping the gem back and forth in his hand. "Perhaps banish one of those old Gods? End the darkspawn once and for all? I can keep guessing all night, Amatus."

"I didn't come here for the blighted stone!" Gaerwn suddenly erupted, causing Dorian to rear back a moment in surprise.

While the Inquisitor paced inside of his cage of choice, Dorian returned the glittering bauble to its stand. Time passed unyielding between the two, each beat of their hearts banging into another second stretching with thunderous silence. "Well," Dorian sighed, "it goes without saying then, what purpose drove you here?"

"Magister Erasmo," Gaerwn gasped out, his face twisted in agony as if he had to force his words through a mountain.

Dorian gripped tighter to his arms and tapped his toe. When no more seemed to be coming from that taciturn tongue, he picked up the thread, "Is the one who gifted me that gemstone. What? Is he under investigation by chantry forces? Do you fear the man might be part of whatever latest thedas shattering issue you've taken up cause for?"

"He's..." The elf had never looked more perturbed in his life, as far as Dorian could remember. Even when standing upon the smoking ruins of Haven, Gaerwn could maintain an aloofness that served him surprisingly well inside the human spheres he tripped into. But here, trapped behind Dorian's stuffy door, he seemed to be coming fully undone. Sighing and shaking his head as if to clear the emotional burst, Gaerwn sputtered, "He's very handsome."

"That..." Dorian coughed a moment, not expecting that response at all, "there are some who bandy it about." In truth, he'd certainly noticed Erasmo's rather striking cheekbones and tight build - especially when the man decided that bare shoulders were in. But looking at his old love practically crumbling to ash before him, Dorian thought better than to voice that observation.

Gaerwn shifted on his bare feet and sighed, "And he's a good ten years younger than I."

"I'd never thought to ask his age," Dorian said and the eyes that once softened to cream in Dorian's arms now hardened sharper than any gemstone he could have in his possession. Gaerwn didn't believe him. _What was all this about Erasmo?_

Scratching along his hair, the white-grey locks as thick and lush as Dorian remembered, Gaerwn stared around at anything that could serve as a distraction. Sadly, he didn't command a dragon to his whim anymore and there didn't appear to be anyone at the party stumbling in questioning where the host vanished to. With a deep sigh, Gaerwn sputtered out, "I came to find his letter to you that accompanied the gift."

"Letter?"

"To see if it...if it was true that you and he were..." Gaerwn waved his hand through the air, his tongue unable to conjure anymore words out of thin air.

Dorian eyed him up a moment, trying to find a laugh. While the Inquisitor was funnier than most assumed, it was only the driest of wits his Amatus bandied about in. A foolish prank seemed beyond him, unless he spent far too much time around Sera. "You are concerned that I am involved with Erasmo?"

The reaction was instantaneous, Gaerwn shaking his head like mad, the man slinking back further into the shadows. "No, no," he insisted even as he glanced towards the windows. Perhaps he was rethinking making his escape that way. "Your personal business is your own, I would never interfere in such matters. It was...I only wondered if..."

"Because he is handsome, and younger, and sent me that as a gift," Dorian continued, his voice and stance giving away nothing.

Gaerwn winced a moment as his heartbreaking eyes swung towards the bobble that his old love kept propped up on a pedestal in his personal study. Sucking in an acrid breath, the Inquisitor spat out, "It is not beyond the realm of belief."

"Amatus," Dorian reached over and caught Gaerwn's flittering fingers in his hand. Still slightly cool to the touch, Gaerwn's palm didn't yank away from the grip. Instead he folded his fingers around Dorian's - their first touch in years. "I'm afraid Erasmo takes his pleasure in another's bed, a few others if I interpret the rumors correctly."

"Fenheedis lasa," Gaerwn cursed to himself. He tugged his hand away in order to pull at his face. Time was less kind to the Inquisitor, the stress of all of thedas' problems guaranteed to wear upon him. But even with the blotchy bags piled under his eyes, the creases folding beside his nose and at the top of the bridge, or the spots of age and too much sun forming new moles, he remained breathtaking.

The man was how Dorian pictured a spirit of duty. Eyes that shined with justice, a grit to his chiseled jaw that no enemy could sunder, hair that was thicker than a bear's. It was hard to work hair into the equation but Dorian adored rummaging his hands through it and tried to include mention every chance he had. When Gaerwn moved it was as if he had control of every muscle in his body at all times, from the top of his forehead down to his bare pinkie toes. Every last inch of the man shifted, molded, hardened, and snapped at his command. And that would never age.

Unaware of the lecherous thoughts keeping Dorian's eyes, brain, and tongue busy, Gaerwn finished pawing at his face and he began to apologize. "Forgive me for impeding your social event. I should not have...I was foolishly led astray, and will never allow it to happen again."

"Amatus," he breathed, his head tipping to the side.

"Your life is...your own, and I have no right to interfere in such capacity as to..." Gaerwn shut his eyes up tight, "I am sorry."

The Inquisitor moved to step aside, to sweep off down the stairs and back into the night of the Imperium as if he were never here. But Dorian placed a hand to the man's taut stomach. Was it his imagination or was it quivering? "Amatus, I don't want your apologies. I don't want your blunder explained away with a flip of your hand."

Gaerwn's hot ice eyes burned up through Dorian's spine and he stepped closer to his old love. With lips parted, Dorian continued, "I do not want your amends, nor your explanation. And I don't want you begging for forgiveness..." He paused, his body a breath away from the elf's as both took in a deep drink of the other. With a smirk that lifted up his mustache, Dorian whispered, "unless you do it on your knees."

The Inquisitor's hand dug through Dorian's hair, his wiry elf propping up onto his bare toes. Hunger piercing from the veil itself, Gaerwn's famished lips found succor on top of Dorian's. Kissing as if they'd both never attempted it together and had never stopped, both men curled tighter into each other. Dorian's palms wrapped tight to Gaerwn's chest, digging into the body he could feel straining below. And his Amatus kept a grip onto Dorian's head as if he feared that the wily magister might suddenly vanish into the ether.

"Fasta vaas," Dorian moaned, his tongue lapping out to lick his lips. Missing the kiss, Gaerwn risked a peek and the old magister smiled, "I forgot how much like sex you smell at all times." Musk without the skunkiness, his love never reeked the way far too many of the southern barbarian's would. Burying his nose into Gaerwn's neck, Dorian took in a greater whiff to breathe him in deeper. His amatus groaned, greedily digging his fingers into Dorian's no longer well tamed hair as he elongated his neck.

Dorian needed no more introduction, but he wasn't in a particular mood to sample that. Those kisses were for loves that'd been parted a few weeks, or were attempting to rekindle something lost. Squaring his shoulders, Dorian drew his tongue up the eternally clean shaven jawline. In his hands, Gaerwn began to quiver as if he was yet as untouched as the day he was born.

Taking his time pressing a kiss here and there, Dorian lapped his way to the elf's slack lips and dipped his tongue straight in. Gaerwn roused from his stupor, that agile tongue of his tasting right back. And what a taste. Each lap brought in more of that heady sexual energy that enveloped his Amatus, and every lick pushed Dorian harder and harder in his trousers.

He blinked in surprise when a hand drew across his chest. Dorian had been so lost in his love's lips he failed to notice Gaerwn's fingers were finding their way down. Nails skittered against the exposed flesh right above Dorian's waist enflaming his already ecstatic body. Gasping into Gaerwn's mouth, when that steady hand that never faltered in duty circled over his thighs and cupped right against Dorian's bulge, the Magister chuckled a moment.

His hot breath darted into Gaerwn's mouth, the elf's eyes smirking while he made himself familiar with the tightening package growing ever more impatient with each swipe. It was foolish, but he felt as if he was a young man being felt up in the back bench of a theater play by whoever was willing to sit beside him. Dorian's heart thundered about in his chest, flapping back and forth like a bird trapped inside a cage. It wanted release. He wanted release.

Gaerwn's lips puckered up, plunging in for more kisses while those questing fingers slipped to the side. It gave Dorian a moment to steady himself, when his Amatus' stump swung forward and pinned to the top of Dorian's rather stylish belt. Working as if he never even lost his hand, Gaerwn shed Dorian's trappings in record time. When the belt went, so did the trousers.

Cool air bounced against Dorian's pecker, which was having a bit of a look see from between the edges of his luxurious doublet. His Amatus paused in the kisses and those spine melting eyes burned into Dorian. How many times did he gaze upon them from across crowded battlefields, ballrooms, or a blustery chantry? How many times did he miss finding them?

With a smirk, Gaerwn began to descend to his knees. Dorian guffawed a moment, "That was only a jest."

"I know," his love said, his voice clear as a bell. "But I choose to take it as an order." Parting his lips, Gaerwn's hot mouth swiped against the head of Dorian's reason for being. The touch was so light as to be comparable to a butterfly, but Dorian groaned from the bottom of his danglers. He was entrenched in the view of the man with salty waves lapping his tongue forward and encircling it around the knobby end.

As Gaerwn leaned in, Dorian wrapped both his arms around his Amatus' head and held on for dear life. The elf's lips pursed at the top like an impregnable dungeon, but as he drew them downward, Dorian's pecker forced apart the warmth it craved. Folding his lips against his teeth, Gaerwn slid him in even deeper down his throat. That wily, wet tongue rifled up and down his shaft, Dorian's hands beginning to tremble as he lost himself in the wiles of the gorgeous man at his crotch.

He wanted to pump his hips, to thrust himself in and out with Gaerwn's ramping up machinations. To explode inside the man that stole into his home because of his burning jealousy.

No.

Dorian cupped a hand to Gaerwn's cheeks and pulled the man back. As he extracted his pecker, it glistened in the orange candle light as if it'd been dipped in gold. His love's haunting eyes tipped up, the man staring in confusion. Wrapping a hand under his chin, Dorian tried to help him to rise even as he had to calm the blood from boiling straight out of his veins.

When Gaerwn stood, Dorian leaned closer to whisper in his ear, "I've had a change of mind. Instead of you begging for forgiveness on your knees, I'd much prefer you spread eagle on the desk."

The smile rising upon Gaerwn's cheeks made Dorian's stomach lift up into his throat. Leaning forward, Gaerwn kissed him long and hard. Lips mashed into teeth, tongues battling for supremacy, the force so strong Dorian felt himself stumbling to meet it. When his back bumped into something, his eyes darted over to find it was the desk that his love shoved him to.

Drawing a hand against Gaerwn's cheek, Dorian whispered in his ear, "Have I told you that I adore you?"

His elf shuddered, "Not recently enough."

"Hm, how about that I wish to ride your ass until you scream my name?"

The smile returned, lightening the stern man in an instant, "That's what I was hoping to hear."

Gaerwn reached for his belt, but Dorian beat him to it. His hands cupped against the hip bones that never receded even after all this time. They prodded right above the trouser's waistband, supported by a belt which he knotted off instead of using a buckle. Dalish.

While Gaerwn's hot tongue lapped from Dorian's mouth, down his jaw, and back to ruffle up the mustache, he worked upon the knot. It was a pain, but getting the leather free of its constrains was worth that effort. With nimble fingers, Dorian undid each of the buttons straining against Gaerwn's own hungry todger. His arbor vitae as they'd call it in easier times.

Peeling the tight pants off of him, Dorian cupped his fingers to the penis that'd be the envy of many in the bath houses. Long but not to the point of being comical, it bore a crown that capped off the shaft with an extra inch of length and girth to what he was used to. This made Gaerwn highly reactive to every gentle swipe or harder tug. The stoic, taciturn Inquisitor was exceptionally sensitive in the right hands.

"Blessed Creators," Gaerwn gasped into Dorian's mouth, his entire body shifting forward to try and lay his vitae inside Dorian's hands. Hm, Dorian chuckled to himself while his fingers circled up and down paradise. He was very tempted to take to his own knees and taste that luxurious skin upon his tongue, but no. He did make a promise after all.

Kneading his hands into Gaerwn's asscheeks, Dorian cupped underneath his love's testicles. The skin tugged softly forward, causing Gaerwn to gasp while the exploring fingers inched their way backwards. At that little knot just below the surface between fun out and very fun in, he shifted his finger inward to dig the knuckle in.

"Yes, yes," Gaerwn cried, his hand grasping against Dorian's shoulder. A few peacock feathers scattered to the floor, but it was worth it to watch his love with head thrown back sucking in air while he instinctively parted his legs. With a cocksure smile, which Dorian kept pressed against Gaerwn's panting lips, his finger circled around the puckered flesh of the back door. Not that Gaerwn's deserved such a moniker as it was quite lovely and well tended even at the most mundane of times.

The tip slid in, swirling with the folded skin which caused Gaerwn to stutter in elvish. Dorian was rather fluent in it at this point in his life, but his Amatus was so far gone it seemed to be gibberish. "Ma Vhenan," Gaerwn gasped, his haunting eyes snapping open wide as they circled around the room. His chest rose taut against the doublet, tugging upon the laces to try and suck in a breath. "Do you have any lubrication present?"

Unable to stand the wild abandon coupled with guarded concern in Gaerwn's eyes, Dorian gripped onto his chin and turned the man right to him. With a slow smile, he parted the veil, grease sliding from the fade down his fingers. Leaning forward with his lips glancing across Gaerwn's, Dorian slipped his finger deep inside. His amatus gasped, mouth cast wide, open lips slipping against Dorian's and a shave of teeth in ecstasy, while his eyes rolled back into his skull. Dorian worked him slowly, opening him up for so much more. So much better.

"Been awhile, Amatus?" he asked, savoring the slippery glide of two fingers wedging the man further apart.

Gaerwn shoveled air into his mouth, the wrinkles at the sides of his nose deepening in his throes. It took him a moment to realize that Dorian even spoke. With a slow twinkle, he said, "What do you always call me?"

"Oh, believe me, my love, I only refer to you as a tight ass in true adoration. And some fantastical daydreaming as well," Dorian grinned wide while he worked his finger past the second knuckle up inside his lover.

"Creators themselves!" Gaerwn shouted, "I can take no more!"

Dorian paused, his hand slipping free. His amatus lunged forward, teeth nipping upon the Magister's lip, tongue laying flat the white streaks in his mustache. Before Dorian could give in to the ploy, Gaerwn turned around and gripped white knuckle onto the desk. His glorious, plump and golden ass glistened by candle light. Maker, it was unfair that such a treasure was designed to be sat upon.

Skirting his hand over the crest, Dorian was held in awe a moment, when Gaerwn grunted, "As I said..."

"Inquisitor," Dorian chuckled while sliding in behind him. His hands swerved up to circle around Gaerwn's hips and hold taut to his stomach. "I am here to serve."

"Since when?" Gaerwn snorted before snapping into more gasps as Dorian's slick hand gripped onto that giving shaft and tugged skyward.

"Since always, Amatus," Dorian whispered, hot breath wafting against the steepled ear beside his lips.

While Gaerwn quivered in his arms, Dorian's lubed hand slid backwards from one pecker to grab another. More grease sprung from the fade, coating himself extra well to make the fit. It was true, it was going to be a tight one, but that made him dig his toes into his boots in anticipation. With his longest finger, he parted the hole prepared for him, a low groan tumbling off of Gaerwn's tongue. Certain in his choice, Dorian guided himself right to the edge of the abyss.

A breath passed between the two, Gaerwn biting his own lip in anticipation as Dorian clung tight to the elf's hips. The man's asscheeks flexed tighter, trying to will him in, but Dorian enjoyed this moment far too much to wish it over so soon.

"Prepare yourself," Dorian whispered, his silky voice cracking in need. Gaerwn whimpered once, begging for the beginning of the end, when Dorian thrust his hips. His cock slid in an inch, boring through the man who'd been out of the game too long.

Gaerwn tumbled forward, his stump pressing against the desk as his head hung down. Giving very shallow pumps, Dorian tried to ease his way in while his Amatus grunted and shoveled in air. "More..." Gaerwn ordered, "Give me all of you."

"Gladly," Dorian chuckled and did as commanded. Blighted blood of Andraste, it was like thrusting into the fist of the Maker. Spots darted up Dorian's vision as he bore down and began the rhythmic pounding that Gaerwn begged for.

His stark, unflinching Inquisitor started to bang his stump into the desk - each smack of the edge matching in kind with Dorian's thrust. When it began to increase in tempo so did Dorian, his cock rippling with pleasure as it gained in stature with each thrust. His skin crackled in the air, sparks attempting to find purchase on anything real in this world as the energy of sex molded into the energy of the fade.

"Harder," Gaerwn commanded in the same voice that led armies, that shook nations, that drew an upstart Tevinter revolutionary panting to his bed. Losing his mind with each thrust, Dorian wrapped an arm around Gaerwn's stomach and tugged the elf backwards.

He moaned, Dorian's cock parting deeper as the man greedily impaled himself. Panting in delicious agony, Dorian's lips nibbled upon Gaerwn's earlobe. His tongue lashed out, tracing the shell in its never ending climb. When he reached the sharp point, he bit down. Gaerwn trembled, his ass clenching tight and nearly pushing Dorian off the cliff.

His amatus gasped and squeaked, the slender throat blocking as breaths of pure ardor and bliss jammed up inside. Slowly, Dorian guided his hand back around the man's naked hips. He swooped his palm up to cup the jewels swaying in the thrusts before giving a good grip to the shaft and taking Gaerwn home. Every pump of Dorian's hips, bringing him untold pleasures, caused Gaerwn's to follow suit and his cock to slip and slide right through Dorian's hungry fingers.

"N-n-n..." Gaerwn stuttered, his head dipping lower as his entire body folded downward to allow Dorian full access. "Now!" he shouted as the vitae in Dorian's fingers hardened to a rock and shuddered. Cum spurted out, some of it squirting into the magister's palm but a lot of it finding its way to splatter on his desk. The feel of another man exploding in his arms drove Dorian right off his own cultivated edge.

With hot lips pressing against the back of Gaerwn's neck, Dorian drove his pecker one last time as deep as possible and the magic happened. He shuddered from the tips of his toes up to his eyebrows while every nerve in his body sparkled awake. Hands still coated in semen, Dorian dug tight into Gaerwn's hips while his own filled the man he loved. Even as the last of the soul lifting tremors faded away from the satiated man, Dorian didn't rise.

He didn't want Gaerwn to see the tears he was burying against the back of the man's head.

"Dor-i-an," Gaerwn stuttered, the man's body slumping further down as he couldn't take the pressure on his stump.

Shaking away his maudlin turn, Dorian excised himself and tried to assist the Inquisitor. But the man was shaking his head and refused to rise from the desk. Uncertain, Dorian fell in beside him, his hands flexing against the mahogany wood. Gaerwn smiled wide and sliding over on his stump, pressed a kiss to Dorian's lips.

"That was..." the man sucked in a breath again, his ice-blue eyes sparking in wonder, "magnificent."

Dorian shrugged, "You always were easily impressed."

"Don't," Gaerwn began, causing the easy manner to shatter like ice. "Don't hide it away, don't scamper back from...from all of that."

The man who'd remained alone, though not celibate, pursed his lips in consternation. It was wise to shake it off with a jolly laugh and handshake at the end. No more. He'd wished for more once, but even that...even that was doomed to failure. Yet he felt it still wafting through his heart like some sick joke. Hope cried out for more, growing increasingly insistent with every turn of Gaerwn's loving eyes.

"What shall we do then, Amatus?" Dorian sighed. "I'm not above riding you until you in turn ride back to Skyhold, but..."

His haunting eyes shut tight, the man who'd stood as the bastion against darkness for nigh on twenty years shuddering. "Ma Vehnan," he whispered as if to himself, "I am so very tired."

"I'd say that's rather normal. Sex does tend to make one wish to tip over into slumber. Probably why its preferred state is done around beds."

Gaerwn skirted his fingers against Dorian's shoulder, scattering the last of the pompous peacock feathers. The magister glanced over, feeling stripped by the move but not angry at it. Almost as if he too was exhausted of the station and all its trappings. Tugging into the bare skin, Gaerwn drew himself into his lover's arms. When his face nuzzled into Dorian's chest, the magister thought to wrap his arms around him too.

"I've attempted to do what's right," Gaerwn began. "To do what is asked of me. To do what is required of me. After all this time, all these struggles, all these scars," he paused and took in a breath. Lifting his head, the chin digging into Dorian's buckle, Gaerwn smiled, "I wish to do what I want."

"Wh..." Dorian could feel all the old arguments they made for each other percolating behind his eyes. You belong in Skyhold. You do the best work there. I am needed here in Tevinter, so I can try somehow to save my homeland. And we...we'll consider a future as a potential retirement plan. Nothing more.

But he was tired of the waiting too. Tired of leaving his amatus as a pair of eyes flitting in the background, or a lingering scent in the doorway. He ached for the man's body to slumber beside his once again, for his dirty feet to leave prints across Dorian's best rugs, for those sparkling eyes to greet him only an inch away in the morning.

"Dorian?" Gaerwn prompted, his lips hanging slack while he eyed up his half naked love. They both sang the same song numerous times, backing up each other in a harmony that kept their lives from being entwined, their hearts separated by distance and duty.

He was sick of it all.

Turning in place, Dorian whispered, "Amatus." He smirked a moment, his eyes skirting down along the man's body before he landed right upon those lips. Wrapping a steadying cheek against them, Dorian dove in for a kiss that tasted different from all the others they'd covered each other in. Those were want, this was need.

As Dorian slid back, Gaerwn's eyes opened to half lids and he smiled, "Ma Vhenan."


End file.
